April 21, 2026, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:01 PM; it being noted that Councillors E. Peloza and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Franke

That, pursuant to section 27.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, a change in order of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee Agenda BE APPROVED, to provide for Item 2.2 in Stage 2, Consent to be considered in Stage 2 with consent items.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That Consent Items 2.3 to 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

2.3   Amendments to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Program Guidelines – Additional Residential Unit (ARU) Construction Grant Program

2026-04-21 Staff Report - Amendments to Affordable Housing CIP Program Guidelines - ARU

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, the following actions be taken with respect to amending financial incentive programs to be administered through the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan:

a) the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated April 21, 2026, as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on April 28, 2026, to amend By-law No. C.P.-1545 41, being “A by-law to establish financial incentives for the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Project Area”, by:

i) DELETING Schedule “3” and REPLACING it with a revised Schedule “3” to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines – Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant Program;

ii) APPROVING the following loan agreement templates: 

  • The Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant Loan Agreement template; 

  • The Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant Loan Agreement (Affordable) template; and 

  • The Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant Loan Agreement; (Indigenous) template;

iii) AUTHORIZING the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to amend, enter into and execute the above-referenced agreements provided the terms of the agreements conform with the Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant Program; and

iv) AUTHORIZING the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to approve, enter into and execute amending agreements to the above-referenced agreements provided the terms of the amending agreements conform with the Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant Program; and

b) the staff report dated April 21, 2026 regarding the Amendments to the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Program Guidelines - Additional Residential Unit (ARU) Construction Grant Program BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.4   Request for a Shareholder’s Meeting - London Hydro Inc.

2026-04-21 Submission - Request for Delegation-London Hydro

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 2025 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder for London Hydro Inc.:

a) the 2025 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder for London Hydro Inc. BE HELD at a meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on May 28, 2026, for the purpose of receiving the report from the Board of Directors of London Hydro Inc. in accordance with the Shareholder Declaration and the Business Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.16; and

b) the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to provide notice of the 2025 Annual Meeting to the Board of Directors for London Hydro Inc. and to invite the Chair of the Board and the Chief Executive Officer of London Hydro Inc. to attend the Annual Meeting and present the report of the Board in accordance with the Shareholder Declaration;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated March 31, 2026, from T. Goodine, Chair, Board of Directors, London Hydro Inc., with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

2.5   2027 Annual Budget Update Overview

2026-04-21 Staff Report - 2027 Annual Budget Update Overview Final

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the report dated April 21, 2026 providing an overview of the 2027 Annual Budget Update BE RECEIVED; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated April 20, 2026 from Mayor J. Morgan and Councillor C. Rahman with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

2.1   Micro-Modular Shelters (MMS) Update

2026-04-21-Staff Report -MicroModular Shelter Site Update

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following report regarding the Micro-Modular Shelter Site Update BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

2.2   Housing Accelerator Fund – 2026 Mid-Year Update

2026-04-21 Staff Report - Housing Accelerator Fund - 2026 Mid-Year Update

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, the following actions be taken with respect to current initiatives under the Housing Accelerator Fund:

a) a proposed by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on April 28, 2026, to amend By-law No. C.P. 1596-87, as amended, being “A by-law to establish financial incentives for the Transit Oriented Development Community Improvement Project Area”, and any related by laws or schedules as necessary, by:

i) establishing the Temporary Waiving of Building Permit Fees financial incentive program, including the applicable program guidelines and eligibility criteria;

ii) establishing the Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant for New Home Construction financial incentive program, including the applicable program guidelines, template agreements, and eligibility criteria;

iii) authorizing the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to approve, enter into, execute, and amend the agreements required to administer the above noted financial incentive programs, provided the terms conform with the applicable Community Improvement Plan financial incentive program guidelines; and

b) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back with opportunities to fund the Pre-construction Housing Grant financial incentive program, upon confirmation that the City will receive the fourth and final advance of the Housing Accelerator Fund.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Lehman

That part a) BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, the following actions be taken with respect to current initiatives under the Housing Accelerator Fund:

a) a proposed by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on April 28, 2026, to amend By-law No. C.P. 1596-87, as amended, being “A by-law to establish financial incentives for the Transit Oriented Development Community Improvement Project Area”, and any related by laws or schedules as necessary, by:

i) establishing the Temporary Waiving of Building Permit Fees financial incentive program, including the applicable program guidelines and eligibility criteria;

ii) establishing the Additional Residential Unit Construction Grant for New Home Construction financial incentive program, including the applicable program guidelines, template agreements, and eligibility criteria;

iii) authorizing the Deputy City Manager, Housing and Community Growth, or their written designate, to approve, enter into, execute, and amend the agreements required to administer the above noted financial incentive programs, provided the terms conform with the applicable Community Improvement Plan financial incentive program guidelines; and

Motion Passed (9 to 4)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Lehman

That part b) BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

b) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back with opportunities to fund the Pre-construction Housing Grant financial incentive program, upon confirmation that the City will receive the fourth and final advance of the Housing Accelerator Fund.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Delegation Request for May 28, 2026 from London Hydro Inc. regarding the Revival of London Holdings Inc. (“NewCo”)

2026-04-21 Submission - London Hydro Holidngs Revival-London Hydro

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Revival of London Holdings Inc. (“NewCo”):

a) the communication dated April 7, 2026 from Y. Semsedini, Chief Executive Officer, London Hydro Inc. BE RECEIVED;

b) the delegation request from London Hydro with respect to the revival of London Hydro Holdings Inc. (“NewCo”) BE APPROVED for the May 28, 2026 meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee following the AGM for London Hydro Inc.; and

c) Council Members BE REQUESTED to submit their name for consideration for appointment to London Hydro Holdings Inc. (“NewCo”) to the City Clerk’s Office no later than 9:00 a.m. on Friday, May 15, 2026.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

4.2   London Transit Rapid Transit Operational Readiness Review

2026-04-21 - Staff Report - London Transit Rapid Transit Operational Readiness Review

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Franke

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the review completed on the London Transit Rapid Transit Operational Readiness:

a) the summary of findings and recommendations by Stantec Consulting on the London Transit Commission Rapid Transit Operational Readiness Review BE RECEIVED; and

b) the London Transit Commission BE DIRECTED to review the following opportunities and report back to Council on implementation, including timing, operational considerations, and resource implications no later than Q4, 2026:

i) with respect to Fare Collection and Boarding Practices, develop an expanded fare retail network and an implementation plan for all-door boarding for the Rapid Transit network;

ii) with respect to Rapid Transit Vehicles, undertake discussions with New Flyer Industries Canada ULC regarding potential vehicle specification enhancements to support Rapid Transit operations, including feasibility, costs, and implementation timelines;

iii) with respect to Rapid Transit Identity and Customer Comprehension, develop a Rapid Transit brand and identity, and associated communications and public awareness programs, to support the launch of the Rapid Transit system; and

iv) with respect to Rapid Transit Stations, review and implement remaining station enhancements to support safe, accessible, and efficient Rapid Transit operations.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Franke

That part a) BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the review completed on the London Transit Rapid Transit Operational Readiness:

a) the summary of finding and recommendations by Stantec Consulting on the London Transit Commission Rapid Transit Operational Readiness Review BE RECEIVED; and

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Franke

That part b) BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

b) the London Transit Commission BE DIRECTED to review the following opportunities and report back to Council on implementation, including timing, operational considerations, and resource implications no later than Q4, 2026:

i) with respect to Fare Collection and Boarding Practices, develop an expanded fare retail network and an implementation plan for all-door boarding for the Rapid Transit network;

ii) with respect to Rapid Transit Vehicles, undertake discussions with New Flyer Industries Canada ULC regarding potential vehicle specification enhancements to support Rapid Transit operations, including feasibility, costs, and implementation timelines;

iii) with respect to Rapid Transit Identity and Customer Comprehension, develop a Rapid Transit brand and identity, and associated communications and public awareness programs, to support the launch of the Rapid Transit system; and

iv) with respect to Rapid Transit Stations, review and implement remaining station enhancements to support safe, accessible, and efficient Rapid Transit operations.

Motion Passed (11 to 2)

4.3   London Transit Route Planning and Management Review

2026-04-21 Staff Report - LTC Route Planning Review

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Trosow

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the London Transit Route Planning and Management Review:

a) the summary of findings and recommendations by Stantec Consulting on the London Transit Commission Route Planning and Management Review BE RECEIVED;

b) the London Transit Commission BE DIRECTED to review the following opportunities and report back to Council on implementation, including timing, operational considerations, and resource implications no later than Q4, 2026:

i) with respect to Transit Planning and Operations, explore further route modifications and service frequency increases on rapid transit feeder routes to fully leverage rapid transit operations;

ii) with respect to Transit Structure and Hierarchy, review opportunities for interim service enhancements on the North and West rapid transit corridors and develop an implementation plan for a tiered-style transit map;

iii) with respect to System Monitoring and Key Performance Indicators, expand performance and planning indicators and objectives, and develop transit infrastructure bus stop guidelines;

iv) with respect to Transit Progression Strategy and New Service, implement alternative service delivery models and establish clear thresholds for expanded or new transit service; and

v) with respect to Mobility Integration, partner with regional providers and coordinate rapid and local transit networks;

c) the Administrations at the Corporation and the London Transit Commission BE DIRECTED to collectively create a more structured collaboration process to better integrate and achieve alignment on planning, operations and administrative initiatives.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

4.4   Review of Subsidized Transit Programs in London

2026 04 21_SPPC_Review of Subsidized Transit Programs in London

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the Review of Subsidized Transit Programs in London:

a) the staff report titled Review of Subsidized Transit Programs in London BE RECEIVED for information; and

b) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee, prior to the next Multi-Year Budget, with program options to consider, including costing, based on the findings in the Subsidized Transit Program Review (appended to the staff report as Appendix “A”) including:

i) maintaining the current subsidized transit programs;  

ii) implementing limited program modifications to enhance access; and 

iii) implementing a universal income-based program.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

4.5   Councillor S. Franke – Advocacy Request – Province to Address Local Impact of Carepoint Closure

2026-04-21 Communication - Carepoint Closure - Councillor S. Franke

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, Mayor J. Morgan and Councillor A. Hopkins BE REQUESTED to continue to advocate to the Province of Ontario, through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), for increased and sustained resources to enable the City of London to expand local shelter and highly supportive housing capacity, establish additional HART Hubs, and significantly enhance access to detoxification and rehabilitation services in London;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated April 21, 2026 from Councillor S. Franke, a communication dated April 20, 2026 from A. K. Michaud, Chair and H. Kupinsky, Associate Chair, Government Affairs & Advocacy Committee, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and a communication dated April 17, 2026 from Councillor A. Hopkins, with respect to this matter.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Franke

That the motion BE AMENDED by adding the words “continue to”:

That, Mayor J. Morgan and Councillor A. Hopkins BE REQUESTED to continue to advocate to the Province of Ontario, through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), for increased and sustained resources to enable the City of London to expand local shelter and highly supportive housing capacity, establish additional HART Hubs, and significantly enhance access to detoxification and rehabilitation services in London;

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Franke

That the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

4.6   Councillor D. Ferreira - Advocacy Request - For-Profit Addiction Treatment in Ontario

2026-04-21 Communication - Councillor D. Ferreira

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by J. Morgan

That the following actions be taken with respect to the communication from Councillor D. Ferreira regarding systemic concerns with for-profit addiction treatment in Ontario:

a) the Mayor and the Civic Administration BE REQUESTED to write a letter to the Ontario Ministry of Health, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, and the Ontario College of Pharmacists; and

b) the Mayor BE REQUESTED to formally advocate to the Province of Ontario, including through appropriate municipal and intergovernmental channels, for the following:

i) that the Province and relevant regulatory bodies undertake an immediate review of high-volume, for-profit addiction treatment and dispensing models operating in Ontario;

ii) that the Province strengthen oversight, establish clear standards for integrated care, including aftercare, clinical oversight, coordination with broader health and social supports, and access to medically supervised detoxification services, and reform current policy frameworks governing prescribing and dispensing practices;

iii) that the Province transition away from private, for-profit drug dispensing models toward a publicly funded and publicly operated model fully integrated within the healthcare system, with a focus on long-term recovery, stability, and patient outcomes; and

iv) that, as part of this transition, these high-volume, for-profit drug dispensing models operating in London and across Ontario be phased out and replaced with a publicly funded, fully integrated healthcare model that delivers comprehensive addiction treatment without gaps in care;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the following communications with respect to this matter:

  • a communication from Councillor D. Ferreira;

  • a communication from D. Callaghan;

  • a communication from V. Smith, Interim Executive Director, Downtown London;

  • a communication from D. Weir, Co-Founder/CEO, Forest City Healing Centre;

  • a communication from MA Hodge;

  • a communication from  P. Skidmore-Skuce;

  • a communication from H. Elmslie;

  • a communication from J. Langford;

  • a communication from B. Gallo;

  • a communication from M. Fitzgerald;

  • a communication from MB Blokker;

  • a communication from R. Patrick;

  • a communication from M. Judson;

  • a communication from T. Dunlop;

  • a communication from P. McIntryre, Director, The Board of Directors of 600 Talbot Street;

  • a communication from T. Davies;

  • a communication from K. Kelly;

  • a communication from H. Chapman;

  • a communication from A. Ortiz;

  • a communication from J. Bancroft-Snell;

  • a communication from D. Robinson, Professor, Associate Dean, Undergraduate, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University;

  • a communication from Becca A;

  • a communication from AM Valastro;

  • a communication from S. Curtis-Norcross;

  • a communication from J. Jacobson;

  • a communication from P. Bergmanis, Co-Chair, London Health Coalition;

  • a communication from L. Maniago;

  • a communication from J. Elliot;

  • a communication from B. Henry;

  • a communication from P. Seale; and

  • a communication from B. Samuels.

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal delegation from Peter Bergmanis, Co-Chair, London Health Coalition with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the request for delegation status from Peter Bergmanis, Co-Chair, London Health Coalition BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential 

None.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 4:39 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (3 hours, 45 minutes)

Good afternoon, everyone. We’ll look to get started with the land acknowledgement. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabak, Haudenosaunee, Lenapawik, and Adwandran. We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home.

The city of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. This is the sixth meeting of the Strategic Prior ities and Policy Committee. I am filling in today as chair, we send all of our best to Deputy Mayor Lewis.

Today we are joined in chambers or online by all members except for the Deputy Mayor and Councillor Hopkins. And with that, we’ll move to, oh, just one more thing. Sorry, the City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication support for meetings upon requests to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact sppc@london.ca or 519-661-2489 extension 2425. And what that will move to item one, which is disclosures of pecuniary interest.

Okay, seeing none, we’ll move to item two, which is consent. Been asked to pull a few items. So 2.1 and 2.2 have been requested to be pulled. And with 2.2, I’ll go to Councillor Palosa, who’s asking for a change order as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was the one who asked to pull 2.2. I have some specific questions that might lead me to vote no to certain components of this one based on staff’s answers. Also not having a best health day.

So I don’t know how long I can stay with everyone today. So procedurally looking for permission from council to our committee to do 2.2 immediately after the other items on consent versus at the end as we normally would. Thank you. I have a seconder on that And I’ll just give the clerk a moment with that.

Just getting the wording together. Any other items to pull? So we are going to deal with items 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 after vote of change of order, just a moment. Okay, we are going to open the vote on a change of order.

And for the remaining items on the consent, just a moment, just getting the wording. Okay, so just on the change of order that will be opening in the system. Also votes yes. Closing the vote motion carries 13 to zero.

Thank you. So first we’ll deal with the items that are in consent, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5. I’ll look for a mover and a seconder and then we ‘ll begin discussion. Councillor Cuddy, Councillor McAllister, thank you.

And any speakers on these items? Councillor Stevenson, go ahead. Thank you. Yes, I just had a question about 2.5.

Following up on the conversation yesterday around accessing line-by-line budgets for each of the departments internally. I just wondered, if we were to move and pass a motion at council, is that something that could be provided for the 2027 budget? Mr. Murray, thanks for joining us.

Ms. Barbone, I’ll allow staff to answer that question. Hi, Ms. Barbone.

Thank you, Chair. Perhaps it might be helpful to define what is meant by line-by-lines, because I believe there might be different interpretations of what that means. When we think line-by-lines, we think account by account by account, which is about 30,000 lines of data that wouldn’t make sense to anyone. Or are we talking in more refined level of information that details the budgets?

That would be really helpful for us to understand the amount of work and whether it would be possible or not to provide. Thank you. Councillor Stevenson, any clarification on that? Yeah, I can.

I mean, I went back to the 2015 budget and I could see that within each of the departments, there were multiple categories, as we know, and then for each category, there was about an eight or nine line budget personnel, purchase services, admin, transfers, that kind of thing. So I’m open to whatever level of detail can be provided, but currently we’re getting one line netted out into a net budget compared to the net tool and it’s hundreds of millions of dollars. So when we’ve got the other boards and commissions, they are reviewing those line by line, whatever line by line means for them. They’re reviewing budget to actual, they’re doing the oversight on behalf of council and it comes to us on a one line.

But this council, it provides oversight over all of the departments within City Hall. And currently I’m concerned that we aren’t providing over site when we’ve got multiple categories netted out into one net budget. Hopefully that helps. Thank you, I’ll go back to staff, Ms.

Barbone. Thank you through the chairs. So that information we provide, excuse me, through our open data. So that was something that Mr.

Murray had referred to yesterday at the ICSE meeting, that that information is provided publicly on that forum because it’s in such a very broad and quite lengthy, we summarize that data and provide that in a report that tries to provide as much context and understanding to make it as simple and helpful for the public and the average user who might be reading that report. So certainly that information is available. We have it on open data now. That is what we do each year in conjunction when we provide the budgets with the CIRLOCs that is background information that is available online and certainly not something that you could print pages of, but is available electronically.

Councillor Stevenson. Yeah, thanks, that’s good to know. Maybe I missed it the last time, but I felt like those detailed business plans that are available on the website weren’t available until after the whole process was done. And maybe I just didn’t see it till after, but I’m just looking for more information to come forward at the time.

I understand it’s a strong mayor, but do I understand there’s not much that can be done, but the public’s really interested. and especially interested in having council know the details. So in that open data, I tried to have a look. It’s, you know, not that easy for the public to see.

So just any thoughts on I didn ‘t didn’t pull it. I’m not planning to move emotion. I’m just looking for input on how we can improve it. Okay.

Thank you. Counselors, was that more common at the end or were you? Well, it was clarification in that, like, what is it when when we got the budgets previously, My recollection, anyway, was we got business plans for the ads, but not for the $1.4 billion, or whatever our portion of that is. The business plans are on the website now, but they weren’t part of the package as they were in previous years.

So I’m just looking for it to be easy for new counselors and the public to see where the $1.4 billion allocated and the changes from one year to the next. In the 2015 budget it actually had 2013 actual 2013 budget 2014 budget that kind of thing that is really helpful when I look at it I don’t recall getting the chance to see that in this term a council. Thank you I’ll go to Mr. Murray.

Thank you three-minute chair so I wanted to distinguish first between business plans and business cases. Business plans are are documents that are available on our website. They provide a short couple page summary of the 90 or so services that the city delivers. Those are always updated or uploaded to the website prior or at the same time that the budget is released and then subsequent to the budget approval there then updated with any relevant material changes that need to be reflected in the business plans.

So those business plans are always available on our website and available to the public and accessible through that format. Business cases, on the other hand, are the documents that you see in the budget sur locks, the budget book itself, that speak to the impacts and the rationale associated with budgetary changes, whether that be budgetary increases, so additions to the budget, service improvements, service enhancements, that sort of thing, or potentially reductions as well. So Council has, of course, recently seen some business cases as it pertains to reductions that have come forward for Council’s consideration as well. So I need to distinguish between those, those again, are always provided in every budget document for any changes that are being proposed, either increases or decreases to the budget as it relates to service improvements or service reductions.

As Ms. Bravo noted, the level of detail that the council is referring to that was previously presented 10 or so years ago, that is almost identical to what is now available on the open data portal. Should those who are interested in that level and that specificity choose to go and look at that. Councilor Stevenson.

Thank you, I’m not gonna belabor it here, but I would say I feel as though I’ve been kind of flying blind in terms of the bigger portion of the budget. We spend a lot of time looking at business cases at budget time, but we’ve not really looked at the main piece. I don’t know whether costs are going up or down. The business plans show the budget for that year, but there’s no compare in my recollection to the previous year and to the actual.

What I saw in 2015 was very helpful. I thought when I read through it last night, it was great. It had one page for each department. It had everything laid out, very easy for a counselor and the public to see.

I would like to lean more in that direction. I’m interested in what my colleagues have to say, and I’ll be working behind the scenes on that. Like I said, I didn’t pull it, but I really think this is something we need to talk about. And I think what we were doing 10 years ago, in my opinion was much more helpful than what I’m seeing right now and I’d love to make things a bit better, especially for the next term of council.

They’re gonna come in and be doing this really fast. If there’s some recommendations or changes that we can make ahead of time, I’d like to be part of that. Thank you. Okay, so I have Mayor Morgan next and then Coun cillor Chassa.

Yes, so as someone who now, not at the start of the term, has some level of responsibility over tabling the budget, I can tell you, I actually find the information that Mr. Murray referred to, the open data portals quite helpful in both the development of that budget, looking at past budgets, like, and although it’s not 300 lines per department, like you could pick a department on the open data portal and you can say heritage, you can see the personnel costs by year, you can see the administrative costs, purchase services, materials and supplies, vehicles and equipment. You can see them every year of the multi-year budget. You can see where there are revenue lines, where there are expenditures lines.

You can see how they change over time. I think if there’s additional information counselors are looking for having a good sense of what’s there and then saying here’s the types of enhancements I would like to see, I think that that’s helpful to know. But I certainly want to emphasize there is a lot of information out there on the open data portal, not just with the budget, but with digging deep into many pieces of the corporation as part of a commitment that was made years ago to participating in the open data model and sharing raw data. And the document I’m referring to is all Excel tables.

So you can do your own, you can manipulate them, you can download them, you can change them if you wanna work through your own estimates of budgets or find out percentage changes you can play with that yourself. So not to say that we can’t do more or do differently, but I just wanted to emphasize for the public that there is a lot of data out there. If anybody has any trouble accessing it I would like to see it in a different way. I know our staff are always willing to help people access that data in whatever way they’d like to access it, but there’s a lot of information on the open data portals, Mr.

Murray’s as emphasized. Thank you, Councillor Trossa, and we’re on items 2.3 through 2.5. Thank you, through the chair, I just wanna briefly state that I support what Councillor Stevenson is saying. I think that somewhere in between getting thousands of pages and one chart, there’s sort of a happy medium.

and I think the mayor is quite right, this is available. And I think that once you’ve gone up that learning curve to use that system, it seems easier than it is for somebody, particularly a member of the public who may be casually looking for information the first time. It’s not exceptionally, it’s not as easy to use as I’d like to see. What I’d like to suggest is if in the staff report, there can at least be a link to the open data and says more information is available here, along with an indication of where the, there’s gotta be some training material that members of the public can access to use this .

I think once you start going up that learning curve, it’s a little easier, but I just wanna make it easier for the public and for the next council to find this additional level of detail. I know it’s there, I know it’s not confidential, and I know that there is a desire quite rightly to keep our principal reports from becoming too cluttered. They do tend to get really long at some point and it’s a lot of printing. So I just wanna move this along in a productive way and just indicate that I think some really good questions are being asked here today.

Thank you, looking for other speakers on these items. Councilor Perble, go ahead. Thank you Chair. And under 2.5, I was frequently on during the last year, so I’m gonna open that up portal and it is truly detailed and any information you can find there, any information you really honestly need.

It is there. Having said that, I think the link or information for probably would be great. I haven’t seen the reporting from 2015, but I will take a look at it. If it is something that potentially would be beneficial.

But that’s, I just want to talk more about in the added agenda on page 65 the graph and multi-year budget annual tax level increase. And I just wanted first of all our finance to confirm that if you look at the first two years of multi-year budget if you take out the impacts of the tax policy decisions and educational tax that in 24 it was actually 7.7% in 25, 6.6%. And now in 2026, when it says 3.4%, my question is, the 3.4, is it before or is it after the provincial adjustments and tax policy decisions? Thank you.

Mr. Murray. Thank you, through you, Madam Chair. So the figures in the graphing question reflect the budgetary increases they do not reflect the impact after the application of tax policy and the impact of provincial education taxes.

So for 2026 that figure is reduced changes from the 3.4 percent that’s noted on the graph to in fact 3 percent after the impacts of education tax and tax policy which went through the last cycle of ICSC. Council purple. Thank you. So just a full up confirmation.

So based on these adjustments, even though the graph shows the numbers which we see in front of us, but based on the adjustments, the first year of the multi-year budget ended up being 7.7% second year, 6.6. And this year, we are anticipating 3.0. Mr. Murray.

Thank you. Three amount of chair, just to be clear, those figures that the counselor is quoting that would be the impact on the average residential taxpayer. The graph shows kind of the global budget picture of the impact of the budget decisions, but as far as what the Councillors indicated, those are correct for the average residential property taxpayer. So purple?

Perfect, thank you for the confirmation. No more questions, comments ? Thank you, looking to other members for speakers. Okay, seeing none online, seeing none in chambers , I’m just wondering if Mayor Morgan can take the chair for a moment?

I’m sure I can take the chair , I’ll go to Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you. I just had some questions with respect to item 2. 3, the amendment to the affordable housing community improvement program guidelines.

My question through you Mayor Morgan is just looking at what’s in front of us today for this item. What do we anticipate to be the expected outcome in terms of number of units or whether or not It’s going to change patterns with developers or with those that are currently building ARUs, or are we just talking about the $20,000 grant for current ARU builds that are coming through from people adding on to their basement or so on and so forth? Mr. McCauley, you’re going to go?

Okay. Go ahead. Thank you. And to the chair.

We know the exact impact, however, we do have a very high level of interest in these programs. We continue to get a lot of inquiries from members of the public about building ARUs. We have heard from members of the public that they would prefer seeing these programs not as a loan program, but more of a grant program. Certainly when we launched the detached program and it did not apply to basement units, we had homeowners sharing us with feedback.

So we know that there’s a large appetite out there. know that there are a lot of lenders who are interested in these programs and have also identified to us that there is financial implications with building ARUs in their bas ements or additions on to their homes. So we see this program as a solution to that, not only to helping homeowners build more units, but also because we are under a timeline to pull in more units to meet our housing accelerator fund targets. So we see this as a win-win.

You know, even with this report having been made public in the last week. We’ve already gathered some interest through our shared inbox about homeowners that are already wanting to know further details and wanting to participate in this program. So we are very optimistic that it will bear fruit and we’re also optimistic that this will help us move toward meeting our housing goals. Councillor ramen.

Thank you. Could you just remind me or take us through the timelines for accessing these types of Mr. Macauley. Thank you.

I might ask for a little more clarity. The timeline for like the application timeline, how long the process takes. Sorry, Councillor. Thank you, through you.

Sorry, if we were to put this in place for April 28th, what’s the timeline that people will be able to access funding? Thank you and through the chair. We would be looking to stand this program up almost instantly. It is dependent on when the building permit is issued.

So that will be dependent on council approval, which we’re anticipating to be April 29th, and then this would be valid until September 7th, where this specific grant program would be eligible. We are looking to that specific permit window in order to support these units getting built. Go ahead, Councillor. Thank you, and my understanding is that the federal HST rebate also applies to renovations.

Is this something where somebody would be able to access both dollars at both of those programs? Mr. May, there’s, go ahead. through the chair.

We don’t have all the details on the HST program, but ideally they would be able to. If they are eligible under that program, there’s no reason that they wouldn’t be able to stack this funding with any other kind of other programs available from the federal government and province. Go ahead. Thank you.

So it’s my understanding that there is a possibility to stack these programs, which I think if we’re looking to spur construction startups and we’re looking to support the industry, I think is helpful from that perspective. So that’s part of the reason why I’d be supportive of what’s in front of us today. And I’m just wondering again, when it comes to new construction, where there is an ARU if these are eligible or not. Go ahead, Mr.

McCauley. Thank you. So the program that are tied to 2.3, that is for existing homes and existing homeowners who are looking to build additional residential units. There is also a proposal in front of committee today that is tied to item 2.2, which is a new program that would be provided to builders or developers who are building new homes.

And that program provides the opportunity for that builder or developer to outfit that new home with an ARU prebuilt into the basement or an addition, and then package that as one sale to a prospective homeowner. So what that does is in turn that homeowner can then purchase not only their primary dwelling, but also have a ready built ARU that they can then instantly within a month or two, apply for the rental unit license and start renting that out and earning a little bit of side income. That could also possibly help pay down their down payment or other loans that they took in order to purchase that home. So it’s also helping with the affordability side of things and constructing new units.

Go ahead, Councillor ramen. Thank you. So yes, I understand that that’s in 2.2, but as this program’s constructed, it could not apply and I’m just trying to confirm that it does not apply to new home builds at this time. Thank you and through the chair.

That is correct. The program for 2.3 does not apply to new homes. Thank you, that’s all my questions. Great, I’ll turn the chair back to you.

Thank you, I’ll go to Councillor Trossa. Thank you very much. I’d like to ask through the chair in terms of the general program terms and conditions. I see that all property owners must be natural persons, no fees, and that it be used as a principal place of residence.

And whenever we talk about that, it does raise the persistent issue of how we enforce that. And I’m happy with these provisions. I see no Airbnb’s are permitted here. You have to have a residential license.

How are these sort of issues going to be enforced ? ‘Cause I’m not satisfied that we’ve really thought that out. Mr. McCauley.

Thank you, and through the chair, as part of the monitoring aspect of this program, there is an annual attestation that the principal homeowners require to fill out . Through that attestation, request documentation such as the current lease, the amount the units been rented, copies of the notice of assessment which will designate the principal address, or the primary address of the primary owner that then reaffirms that that building or that home is still owner occupied. We do that on an annual basis throughout the monitoring term and ensure compliance through that process. Councillor Trusson.

I guess my next question is, I don’t want to say is that it, But is there anything else other than the property owner filing a document? I’m not sure what workflow that document goes through or whether any of them are going to be checked. Or is this just you file the document on its face and if there’s a complaint, there’s a complaint. Because I’m still not satisfied that this is not going to create additional enforcement problems.

I don’t want to stand in the way of additional AR Us, but I want to make sure that we’ve really thought this out because it’s going to create it ‘s going to create problems in particularly certain neighborhoods. So what else is there to ensure this is done? Mr. McCully.

Thank you and through the chair. So the it is not as simple as just filing some documents. There is a staff member who is monitoring these applications and checking in and there is a back and forth. In addition to the attestation there is the collection of these documents and they are put on file.

They are assessed and vetted to make sure that the principal homeowner is still in compliance with the terms with the legal agreement. If it’s determined that principal homeowner is no longer occupying that residence as their primary residence, then we do have provisions within the legal agreement to take action. That’s everything up to including requesting the principal amount back in any accrued interest. So there are penalties included in that.

But there is — it is a little more than just filing some paperwork. There is some back and forth with the staff member to ensure compliance, all the documentation. One thing that we have found as we’ve moved through this program is that there’s a lot of questions that we have from the public in terms of process and how to navigate. There’s a lot of assistance that we’ve had to provide the public in navigating these programs, and we’re happy to provide that level of assistance and that level of customer service.

So there’s certainly a lot of back and forth between my team and members of the public participating in the program. Thank you. Next question deals with what is the anticipated effect of this expanded program on the workload of the Committee of Adjustments. Mr.

McCauley. Thank you and do chair. We don’t anticipate there being any additional workload placed on the Committee of Adjustment as a result of additional ARUs. Thank you.

Councillor Trossa. I’m having a problem with understanding that because it seems to me as if that’s exactly the sort of thing, especially if there is a, these are as a matter of right. But if you want a variance from a setback requirement, I see these pending all the time in my area. It’s very typical that the owner is going to want to cut into the setback a little bit.

There’s one pending now where, well, I’m not going to go into the details about the one that’s pending now on Maitland, but most certainly this is going to give rise either it’s not not being reported or there is going to be a proper procedure at the Committee of Adjustments. So I think just to say that there’s no anticipated effect on the workload of the Committee of Adjustments is really missing a very important piece of what in reality is going to happen or what should happen. Mr. May, there’s — and Councilor, just so you know you have 45 seconds remaining.

Through the chair, so we don’t want to say there ‘s not going to be any additional work is just the magnitude of it, right? So we’ve been seeing that over the last few years , we’ve been getting upwards of 400 ARUs a year. Our hope, and of course, we’d love even more than this, but if even if we can get 40 or 50 additional AR Us through this process, that would be wonderful. So it might be, those could lead to community adjustment related submissions, they may not, but it should only be like a marginal increase if there is an increase.

Councillor Trosto. I’m not going to push this further today. I would at some point in the future like to see a more fulsome staff report about this. It’s really gonna be a problem in the near campus neighborhood.

I can already foresee that. I don’t know how to raise that in the future, but this is an issue that I think you’re minimizing. Thank you. Thank you, looking for other speakers.

Seeing none, opening the vote on 2.3 through 2.5. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Thank you. With the change of order, we’re dealing with 2.2 next.

I had Councillor Pelosa requested to speak on this item. So I will go to you first, Councillor. I have no amendments at this time. I’m trying to look at the chambers for a mover and seconder to get on the floor and then I can ask questions from there.

Okay, I’ll look for a mover and seconder. Councillor Frank, Councillor Layman, thank you. And Councillor Pelosa, go ahead. Thank you, just procedurally trying to keep it clean.

A few questions to you to staff on several items within the report. I appreciate the report and realized it came from a strong mayor directive. Directing civic administration is the report that came back. I still have a few concerns within it.

Page 18, it speaks to people with outstanding fees. Just looking through you to staff, is there a timeline for those outstanding fees that have not been paid? Or is it just a few months people might be saying outstanding fees or has just, they’ve been saying there for years and they might get them waived now? Mr.

Mathers, go ahead. Through the chair, so if I don’t want it to be seen like there’s people who have fees that they haven ‘t paid, that they’ve been issued that they haven’t paid, these would be any kind of a unit that is ready to be or is currently being evaluated by staff from a permit perspective. So the way that it works with these permits is that you provide a deposit, then it’s provided to them the permit submitted for staff review and then prior to issuing the final permit, then we assess all the fees and then those fees need to be paid before providing the actual permit to the individual to be able to move forward. So these are just people that have permits that are underway being reviewed and it just allows that they won’t be excluded from this process.

And the reason in the rationale for that as well is that for example, a large apartment building, it may be up to like a year to six months that it takes to be able to bring forward and move through the process of approving a permit like that. So those are the exact types of permits we’d like to be able to move forward quickly. So it could be up to like a six months or a year that they’ve been accruing these fees, but they wouldn’t have been issued an invoice for them yet. Councilor Palazza.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that, especially as a budget chair of what kind of outstanding fees we’re talking about. A question through you to staff. On page 17 is recognizing linen transit bus routes and 1500 meters looking for clarification on that one as some LTC bus routes are temporary.

Some only operate at sporadic hours to certain areas of the city. Some are actually detours looking for clarification if this is the primers of the program just for staff clarification. Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair, so it does include all current routes. So we have the mapping that’s available. So it may, so it would include any of those temporary to the other forms of routes as well. We did take into account because we know that there’s even over the longer term consideration of other routes, but from the current period of time, we’ve just taken the existing mapping and used that as our basis.

Councillor? Thank you. Just I know I have some bus routes that normally come into War 12 that have been highly impacted by the Rust-Rapper Transit that are highly utilized that I think were maybe routes 95. So it was just concerned for that.

I appreciate the report also talks about the missing middle and hoping that some of these programs can address that as well. Some of my other concerns, I know we have projected grant money for even just one unit, some concerns that that could just be a really one large mansion home. I know it wouldn’t be a lot of money for that person, but not the type of housing I was trying to get built. My last question might take a couple of staffers.

If we’re talking about, and I really appreciated the housing accelerator fund the love and goals that it was trying to address and especially number seven, which was partnering for affordable housing projects. I have one approved through council in war 12, it would bring 100 units in, including affordable housing and rent and gear to income. Prior, it was located on John Leno Boulevard. It is serviced by an LTC bus.

Looking to see, it was currently outside of the bus, too far from the bus rapid transit corridor, that this program seems to allow that since their LTC would have a bus route nearby, it would qualify. Would staff actually reach out to items like this on the book that have been approved by council, but have not moved forward yet? Thank you, I’ll go to Mr. Mathers.

through the chairs, we will absolutely make sure that everyone’s aware of the program moving forward because we are very excited to try to get these units move forward, especially before that September 7 deadline. So, happy to reach out to any of the individual builders developers that you have any concerns with. And there would absolutely be an opportunity for them to be able to capture this if they haven ‘t already had a permit that’s been approved. As far as targeting permits that have been approved and getting them to move to the point of being actually starting and building the construction, that’s absolutely what we can turn our mind to after we get to the September 7 th date, and that’s the part of the recommendation just highlights that there will be opportunities once we know we’ve got the full amount of funding that we can turn our heads to trying to get some of these other opportunities that may have a permit or to be able to get them to push them over the edge to get into a start and foundations being constructed and getting homeless for folks as well.

So the current report, it really is just focused on getting those permits issued at this point. Councilor Palosa. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will follow up offline with that specific development as they are on the city’s radar ‘cause they would pull from our housing wait list and they were just having some financial issues that maybe this can help since they didn’t qualify for some of our other programs.

That concludes my questions at this time. Thank you. Thank you. I had Councillor Ferreira next.

Okay, thank you, Chair, through you. I appreciate the report, appreciate the direction . I just got some questions with respect to the housing supply growth targets. I know we made some revisions for the targets and what Councillor Lose was speaking to within the same middle and I think with the multi-unit housing changes.

I just wanted to ask, I do see in the report that it says it’s not possible to amend the CMHC agreement and that CMHC agreement originally depended on the original target. So I just wanted to know with these new target numbers that we’re using, are we still able to be receiving or would we be able to be approved if we hit the new target amounts for the additional funding for the fourth payment ? Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair, so we’ve been working very closely with the CMHC staff on this. So at this point, there’s a lot of municipalities that are gonna be having some challenges with their targets and how they’ve been outlined. So what they’ve suggested to us is that when we issue and provide to the CMHC the final year report, we document all of this and we make that case, the decision will be finally made by the housing minister at the time to be able to decide on who gets the funding and that moving forward. So we’re not able to say because we don’t know how what kind of criteria are gonna be used at that time.

We hope there’ll be a bit more information that comes available between now and then. That’s why we’re suggesting we should still be very much focused on trying to meet that overall target that was initially provided. But we are much more comfortable in working with CMHC and letting them know that we’re much closer to the missing middle value than we originally thought we were. So that’s really great news.

Councillor Ferrera. Okay, thanks. So from what I understand like the overall through your target of 11,803, like if we were to hit that target and potentially as long as we hit that target and we did have the revised target amounts for the missing middle, it seems likely that we may still be able to get that fourth installment of funding. Mr.

Mathers. through the chair. So that is very much our hope. The only way to actually understand how the final payment’s gonna be provided is to know how the housing minister’s gonna make the final decision.

So we think we’re in a good position for that, but we can’t say definitively at this moment. Councillor, go ahead. Thank you for that. Okay, and I guess my last question.

I guess it’s with respect to the temporary waiving of building permit fees program. I do see that there’s some level of retroactivity here except for the deposits or fees that would already be paid. I just wanted to know how far back would we go? Mr.

Mathers. Yeah, through the chair, so it only applied to folks that don’t have their permit issued yet. So in most cases that we’d only go back to like if it was a large apartment building, it might be back eight months to a year ‘cause they may have been working through the process. Anybody that already has a permit that’s been issued not be eligible for the programs.

If you already have your permit, that’s not something you’re going to be able to be able to get money back retroactively. So really it’s only any of those permits that are currently sitting with the city and haven’t been approved yet would be eligible. Councillor. All right.

Thank you for that. Thank you for the answers. I supported the last one. I supported this one.

I know when I saw the new ARU construction and then I saw the all ARU construction I like the two I see how that they ‘re working together so I just want to make those comments I’ll be supporting this one too. Looking for other speakers Councillor Chaucer go ahead. Thank you and through the chair I want to follow up on what Councillor Palosa raised regarding the LTC routes. I think saying any LTC route is very imp recise and shifting and very tentative and very iffy way of making this determination that is going to determine the rights and obligations of people with respect to their to their property.

I’ve just brought up on my screen at L TC root map. And I’m trying to, I’m trying to look at the, I’m trying to look at the, you know, one centimeter equals, I’m trying to look at the scope of this. And I’m wondering, has staff actually looked at this map with respect to this number? And can you give me an overlay map or something approximating in terms of what would be taken in with that LTC rule.

That would be very helpful. You’re shaking your head, so. Mr. May, there’s.

Yeah, through the chair, absolutely. So if council or committee moves forward with the recommendations here, we will bring to council the specifics within the form of a by-law that would include a figure that would highlight the area that’s covered. I’ll be very open with you that that area with that 1.5 kilometers is, for the most part, covers any areas that are in the built-out city or most areas that were development occurring currently. So, it is a very expansive area.

The reason why we’ve done it that way is just to ensure that we can cover off, optimize the number of opportunities to be able to get permits at this time. And so that will be available to you. Also, just so that we’re all clear as well, this program would only last until September 7th of this year, so it’s only the next five to six months. So if there are some tweaks or changes to over that time, the root schedule, it’s unlikely to change the overall map substantially.

And so, but either way, the figure that’s provided as part of the package would very much be the basis of how we’d make these decisions, but it does cover for the most part, most areas that are under development currently. Thank you. - Councilor Rossell. And I don’t see a by-law attached to what we have today, which means the by-law is gonna come back at a future date.

And even if council passes this, we still have to see the by-law where we can make refinements. Mr. Mathers. Through the chair.

So the by-law will go to the council, we’ll be putting it as part of council package. So you’ll have the opportunity to look at it once it’s provided. reason for that is we just we want to make sure that if there’s any other tweaks or changes that that committee would like to make that we cannot make those changes as part of the package but you’d have the opportunity to see that for council and maybe make the decision at council whether you want to proceed. Okay and my last question is through the chair if it takes in most of the city which I think is what you said why don’t we just say that why do we have to refer to the LTC roots especially given the tentative nature of those roots.

The other thing the LTC reports that we’re going to be talking about later today are going to be differentiating between feeders and spines and neighborhood special specialty things and I’m wondering if we could be more precise. If this is going to expire soon I don’t think we have to worry about it but in In the long run, I don’t like the idea of saying near a LTC route period. So that’s my question here, and I’m going to support this, but I’m going to be watching this very carefully. Thank you.

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, that is absolutely, that’s a great question. So the reason why we’re using that reference to transit is because right here we’re suggesting a financial incentive program.

That is under a community improvement plan. Community improvement plan that we were using is the transit related community improvement plan. If committee or council wanted to look at a completely different type of CIP in the future, that could be just overall encompassing of the city and looking at development. You could do that.

It’s just the process, because it’s a regulated, like a legislative process, usually takes six to and nine months to be able to come up with a new CIP. So we’re trying to look at creative ways to be able to use our existing CIPs, but also meet some of the timing requirements for the housing accelerator program and get those permits approved. Councilor? Nothing further, thank you.

Thank you. I have Councilor Pribble and then Mayor Morgan. Thank you, sir, to chair to the staff. Last November when we received the annual update, it stated and talked about the 11 initiatives and the milestone actions.

It stated there are a couple of them that are outstanding and they will be completed by Q2, 2026. I just want to receive a comment if they have been or if we are on track there. Thank you. Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair. Absolutely, I’m super happy to announce that we are completed all of our initiatives, all of our actions and all of our milestones for all of that housing accelerated work, which is really, really great because it was a heck of a lot of work and not every municipality can say that for sure. So that is absolutely all complete now.

Council approval. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you and congrats to the entire team.

Very glad to hear that. The update, the updated agenda on page 13, there’s the table one and the third and fourth item is investments in housing related infrastructure and investments in community related infrastructure that supports housing. First of all, when I saw it last time in the fall , when I look at our budget amounts, I’m very glad that we move forward and we have actually these initiatives in place. But I wanted to ask you, for example, on page 16 where we have the housing-related infrastructure investments, and it says, for example, Kailale Road, four and a half thousand plus homes, and then we have a contribution from the half.

And then when I look compared to the other ones, this certainly doesn’t seem like a huge amount for the infrastructure, but then there’s amounts still that could be allocated to this. I just want to explain, if you can explain it to me, how do we allocate it to specific projects to satisfy our infrastructure needs? Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair, so yeah, this is a really great example of us moving the projects forward. So at the previous report, we reported that an estimate of $2 million for this item. So we’ve just at yesterday’s ICSE, we brought Kelly’s team. Mr.’s team brought forward the Clearly Road Infrastructure Improvement Project, and it came below the budget.

that was initially anticipated. This project is both funded from building faster front and from housing accelerator, so it was a total of 2,447,000 that was required, and it’s in the source of fire, I was able to pull it just before the meeting, and it is in the source of financing, like that. So they’ve been able to reallocate some of the funding from that to one of the other projects that are on the list here. So, but it’s one of the really nice thing about the flexibility between these programs, that if there’s projects come in at the lower dollar amounts, you can easily apply it to different programs and projects.

Councillor? Thank you, no more questions for comments. Thank you, I’ll go to Mayor Morgan. Thank you, so let me provide a couple of thank yous to start.

First, I wanna thank the federal government for the Housing Accelerator Fund money. Now, we do have targets to meet with that money, but I think our staff have done a really great job of bringing forward some ways that we can use some existing money we have to not only drive housing, but set ourselves up for getting the next tranche of money from the federal government. Second, thank you, as to our staff. You were asked to do a lot of this work on a fairly tight timeline.

You brought forward, I think, some really great programs that are both creative in nature, but also, I think, really effective. And just when the report came out of my consultation with members of the industry who might access these, I think there’s gonna be significant interest in a number of these programs. to the level where the numbers start to get us close to meeting our targets, people are going to be able to move on, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of units. And that’s a really positive thing.

I wanna talk about just a couple of the programs briefly. The ARU program construction grants at the time of new home construction. I think this is a really great way for us to use housing accelerator funds to actually drive a little bit of light density in the new home constructions. This is not something that is completely new.

There’s at least one developer in our city who has done this of their own accord and on a very small scale to try it out. And what they found was there’s a lot of interesting people in not only moving into a new home, but having the ability to have a ready-to-go ARU for either their aging parents or as a possible income opportunity to defray the cost of housing and make it more affordable in the community. That developer actually partnered with RBC to have that taken into account in the calculation for how they were working towards their qualifications for their mortgage, which is great, that there is models already existing in the city , that this can actually be leveraged to help people get into a home in an affordable way by having that income accounted for and in some of the calculations to qualify for homes. So I think that this is a really great and innovative way for us to use some housing accelerator funds to move numbers quick.

To some of my colleagues’ questions, I know that parts of this might not feel perfect, especially the alignment with LTC routes, but we’re talking about a program that is going to be temporary, that is going to expire at the end of September, that is meant to drive some numbers in the community and also allow us to decide, if some of these things work out and we get the next tranche of money, this doesn’t mean we can’t do this in a slightly different way. We’re perhaps in a more focused way across the city than the widespread way across the transit CIP. We would have time to actually do some of that work and actually bring that into place. But for now, one of the critical pieces we have to get to here is meeting our targets so that we can continue to have what is absolutely necessary money for creating housing in our community flow to us.

We’ve done a great job of meeting our housing accelerator fund targets so far. And I think we will, I have a lot of confidence we’ll meet the next one because of the really great work of our staff and bringing forward programs like this and the supportive comments that I’ve heard from my colleagues. So I’m very supportive of what we have before us and I look forward to the updates along the way. But again, what I’ve heard is really positive feedback from those who are likely looking to access both this program and the one that we voted on subsequently, which may actually move housing and leverage some of the changes that you know is already being made by the provincial and federal governments with you know HST discounts and those sorts of things like we’ve got a little bit of momentum here and that’s it’s really good for us to do some actions at the municipal level to to try to accelerate that.

Thank you looking for other speakers Councillor Stevenson. Thank you I just had two questions and one of them I’ve answered as I was looking closer here but I’ll just confirm with staff in case anybody else reading it has the same question. So on page 17 for the pre construction housing grant it says source of funding subsequent report back to council but I can see in the recommendation that it’s once there’s confirmation that the city receives the fourth and final advance of the housing accelerated fund. So I just want to confirm we’re not looking at municipal funds and approximate timing on that, Mr.

Mathers. the chair absolutely at this point we’re not suggesting using municipal funds or hope is to be able to a couple pieces hopefully what they were targeting trying to get that entire 20 million dollars which would have some opportunities to be able to bring forward a program like this also if there’s any other programs that we’re currently offering that still have funding remaining in them then we can look at repurposing them into a new opportunities as well, even if we don’t get that complete $20 million, noting that we are kind of like, I just want to let everybody know that’s what we’re going for and that’s our target. And then the next piece of it is that is for the timing. So September 7 is the date that we need to be to get those permits.

We issued the report to CMHC in the middle of October, and then this year they got back back to us in February of the following year. Hopefully it will be a little bit sooner than that, but we’ll start preparing reports even in before we hear directly back, but we will hopefully be able to get back to committee and council either in December or January. It just is very much related to the timing that we get the information back from CMHC. Councillor?

Yep, thank you. That’s very helpful. Appreciate that. My other question is around 3.2 and the investments in half-action plans and affordable housing.

And it’s the affordable piece that is really confusing for the public a lot of time. So I noticed in 2.2, the affordable ARU construction grant is actually 100% CMHC average market rent. So in these other ones, are they all that way? Or does it depend on projects just so that when we’re telling the public when we’re issuing these affordable programs, is there a standard that we’re using at the city, Mr.

Mathers? Through the chair, there absolutely is a standard . If we’re looking at it, it does depend on the program because you like to try to have a variable program to allow for different types of affordability. to the most part, like our roadmap and our dollars to indoors program is focused on 80% of market rent, but we might have other programs that allow for slightly larger amounts, just to target different parts of the housing spectrum.

Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thanks, so last follow-up then, I’m assuming 100% is the maximum, and what is the CMHC average market rent that we’re using right now? Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair. Yeah, for the ARU program, I can provide you. So for a studio, it’s $1,066, that’s 100%. And then for one bedroom, it’s $1,370.

Councillor? Thank you, that’s all. Thank you, looking for other speakers on this item. Councillor Chaucer, go ahead.

I’m sorry, I keep jumping back and forth, but when Councillor say something, it resonates with me, I have to follow up on it. I’m a little concerned that there’s not much an affordability component here. Now I understand that there’s a trade-off between adding more of an affordability component and hitting our aggregate housing target numbers. And I’m wondering if there’s anything this council can do at this date to maybe enhance the affordability aspect of this, because based on what’s in front of me, I don’t even want to use the word affordability.

I think it sets the wrong. We shouldn’t be telling the public that we’re using this money for affordable units if we’re really not and maybe we need to build these units anyway I’m not disputing that but I’m really uncomfortable using the word affordability at that at that level. Can we do something to decrease the percentage so maybe some of these are a little more affordable. Through the chair what we’re finding is most of these ARUs are a bit more inherently affordable compared to like your typical apartment building especially if it’s a new bill department.

So if you’re looking at, our hope is that expanding this to allow for either extension to the house or a basement apartment that it can even be at a lower cost, then what can be a very substantial cost if you’re constructing a completely separate ARU, so we’re hoping that that’s gonna be more inherently affordable. The aspect of this that looks at the planning fees, that can also be stacked with any other type of program we already have existing so if there is somebody coming in with an application that has affordable housing they would also be able to access as long as they provide the get-through-the-permaying process by September 7th so that that’s our hope we wouldn’t necessarily at this point suggest reducing that hundred percent because there this is we’re we’re absolutely working with residential homeowners and there’s a bit more risk associated with that than if you were able to have many units that were at an 80% profile but of course that’s something for council to consider as well. Well I guess I guess I learned a new term today and that’s inherently affordable and I ‘m not sure that if something’s inherently affordable it helps the target population that’s the most impacted by the high cost of living and the lack of affordability. So I really think we have to be careful with terminology creep here.

Affordability inherently affordability. How long is this this is a temporary program if we if we okay this will the next council be able to come back and revisit this early in the term in terms of maybe maybe looking at more of an affordability calculus? Through the chair yes absolutely this this portion or the additional portion only extends till September 7 th so it is a very limited time frame. Okay so again I don’t want through the chair I don’t want to hold this up I’m going to support this but I don’t know inherently affordable just does not do it for me so there it is we’ll see what happens thank you I was going to turn the chair over to Mayor Morgan is it okay if I come back to you after I do my questions thanks okay I’ll turn the chair over to Mayor Morgan sure I’ll go to Councilor on it thank you and through you so I’m just picking up on some of Councillor Trosto’s points and looking at this from an affordability perspective on the ARU piece.

Part of the reason for my line of questioning around new home construction is, in my word, I’m seeing a lot of new builds where there are separate units in the basement already. What’s the difference between that and an ARU? If there’s already, let’s say, a builder is already building a product. These products happen to be in the 1.2 million plus range, where there are separate entrances, separate bedrooms in the basement plus a kitchen, would that qualify as an ARU?

Through the chair, if it’s an actual ARU and it’s additional unit, then there is specific building code related requirements that will be put onto that unit related to fire, like having appropriate fire protection and HVAC requirements. And there’s quite a few different requirements are required that would need to be approved and assessed within any of those units. So if they went through that process and they brought forward a permit that shows a secondary unit, then yes, they would be eligible for the program. If a builder decides to choose to go through the program, but I’m not aware of a lot of those at this at this point.

So they would have to it would have to be a formal unit as far as the the building requirements is move forward. Go ahead, Councilor Ahmed. Thank you and through you . So I’m happy to share some listings for some new builds in my area that have those separate components to them where they are a separate unit with a separate entrance point to them.

They have their own kitchens, they have their own bedrooms, and so on and so forth. They may not be intended for additional residential units for rental purposes, but they may be intended for families with multi-generational members where they’re separate living arrangements. And like I said, these are in the 1.2 plus million range. And I personally am not comfortable with adding an incentive to housing at that level.

So I won’t be supporting this until we can create some parameters that address this being for more affordable forms. I think just having it as a blanket form creates an incentive where maybe it isn’t needed. And I want to speak to the 1.5 metres or sorry 1.5 kilometres from transit route. I have some concerns with moving forward with adopting this part of the report.

And my main reason is I think we’re creating a new definition of transit oriented when we do that. I understand that there is a desire to spend this money to incentivize housing. Personally, I don’t think $100,000 on an apartment building that is 100 units plus is a big enough incentive that it’s going to stop a developer. But my concern is it does create a new definition that I’m not entirely comfortable with.

Right now with transit, when we talk about proximity to a transit stop and being proximal to it, we usually talk about 400 meters. This to me provides additional definitions that I think opens a door for not just our CIP definitions, but also how we define transit in the future. And I just wanna be very clear about whether or not a building is considered in a transit area or not, because I think it makes us look at the form of the building differently, and we have a lot of conversations happening right now about where we’re building, and whether or not it is on a transit route, whether or not it should have more parking or not , et cetera. And part of my concern is that we’re opening a door for a conversation that I’m not sure that we fully decided on what the correct definition is right now, but I’m more comfortable at 400 meters than I am 1.5 meters.

And so at this time, I won’t be supporting either of those options in this report. Okay, thank you, Councilor and the Chair, back to you. Thank you and I, Councilor Stevenson. Thank you, just through you, just a quick question.

I have had some questions on this myself. So a bare bones ARU, what type of cost would that be? I know it’s a hard question to answer, but just very ballpark when we look at these grant amounts. I’ve been, people have asked what percentage of the cost we’re looking to fund.

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair. So we do get to see some of those costs because that’s part of like the submission requirements and we do have a loan program available for the units that we’re looking at including right now.

So on a, if you’re looking for a external unit that’s separate from the house, it could be anywhere from $100 to $130,000 for unit like that. Basement units, it’s in the ballpark of $50 to $ 60,000. Councillor Stevenson. That’s good, thank you.

Other speakers on this item. Okay, seeing none, we will look to open 2.2. I’m just one moment. So I’m gonna turn the chair over to the mayor so that I can let you know which parts I’d like to vote on separately.

Sure, let me know how you want this separated. Thank you and through you. So I would like to vote on part A.I. Separate and A.I.

and I’m okay with the rest being packaged together. Okay, so that means we do AI and AI separate. Does anybody else? Oh, I guess sorry.

You’d have to, I-I-I, guess is connected to A. So I’ll just vote A and B separate. A and B separate. Everybody okay with A and B separate?

Okay. All right, we’re gonna do A first. So this is gonna be A, which includes all the sub components of A, correct? Correct?

Yes, okay, perfect. All right, that’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna use the same movers and seconders If you’re comfortable for both, yeah, I see nods. Okay, we’re gonna open A with all its components first.

We’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries nine to four. Okay, and next we’ll do B, and we’ll open that when it’s ready. Mr.

Stevenson. I vote yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. I’ll turn the chair back to you, Councillor Roman.

Thank you. We are now going on to item 4.1, which is our delegation request for May 28th from London Hydro Inc regarding the revival of London holding NUCO, looking for a mover and a seconder on this item. I have Councillor cutting, Councillor McAllister, any speakers on this item? Seeing no speakers at, oh, Councillor Ferriero, go ahead.

Thanks, Chair. Just, I don’t have the report in front of me, but from what I remember, it was looking to appoint a board member to on this item. Is that correct for the new corporation? Thank you, so just to clarify, this is to deal with the delegation on May 28th, And at that time, they would look to bring forward the members that they’re recommending, and then council would also appoint a member at that time.

Okay, thank you. Thanks for clarifying that. Looking for any other speakers. Seeing none, we will open the vote.

Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Okay, we are on item 4.2, the London Transit Rapid Transit Operational Read iness Review. I’m looking for a mover and seconder on this item , Councillor Cuddy, Councillor Frank, thank you, and we’ll begin discussion. Looking for any speakers.

Councillor Stevenson, and then I’m Councillor Van Meerberg. Thank you. I just had a couple of general questions. Like it talks about customer comprehension.

And there are concerns around the East Link how that’s gonna work as Dendastry goes to one lane with all of the cars that are turning right, right? We have all these areas where cars can turn right . And also the fact that we’ve got bicycles in, So there’s a little bicycle design right on the red pavement. And so people are wondering how this is going to be rapid transit with both of those things.

So is that explanation going to be part of this or is there anything that can be shared now to help people understand what that’s going to be like? Thank you. I’ll go to Ms. Share.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The rapid transit in the context of what’s being built does not refer to the speed of the buses, but the reliability of the service. So the time between each bus that it is reliably there on a rapid schedule, while you do have some compromises by going to curbside running, which does allow more right turns that can impede momentarily the buses in those lanes. There are other offsets with respect to the ability to maintain other property access to introduce stationage at major spots like 100 Kellogg that we went through and we modeled the performance of the corridor.

The bike sharing certainly can reduce the speed that’s available to buses in the lane, generally uptake is quite low in these facilities , and we do have bike facilities in other parts of the neighborhood. So all in all, those were reviewed as part of the design planning, much further back than the operational planning that’s in case here, and we’re confident we can maintain the headways that are required for this service to be reliable for its users. Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thank you.

So just one follow up on the bike sharing. So that wasn’t a temporary thing. That’s actually part of the overall design that we’re gonna have buses every five minutes or so, and yet we’re gonna have bicycles in that lane. Ms.

Share. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, the majority of the lanes are designed to accommodate cycling where it is a curbside running lane as well, and the bus canways vary throughout the system between five and 10 minutes once we get to pre- peak operating. As I said, in many cases, we have cycling infrastructure on parallel streets that will move the majority of cyclists, but there is the ability for cyclists to use that lane, much as they would a traffic lane for cars.

Councillor? Yeah, thank you. I guess just cars aren’t allowed, right? So bicycles, but not cars.

Okay, thank you. Councillor Van Meerbergen. Thank you, Chair. I’m hesitant to use the words bus and rapid together in the same sentence.

This is a hugely onerous taxpayer expenditure. And I know in the case of my own ward, there’s minimal support. therefore, and that I’ve been consistent for the last two councils in not supporting this concept and certainly the cost and the benefit. I would like A and B called separately, please.

Thank you. Hey, looking for other speakers on this item. Councillor Trossa. Hard to follow that, is it?

Yeah. So I think I’m just gonna keep going. I’m just gonna keep going. First of all, first and foremost, Thank you so much for these staff reports.

And I want to direct this to Kelly and your department and everybody that you worked with on these reports. I learned a lot about transit policy from reading these reports, both 4.2 and 4.3. And what really struck me reading this report— and by the way, I’m the one— I’m the mysterious person who asks for the full stand tech report to be sent around. surprise.

But I’m just reading that now. And as good as I thought the summaries were from your staff, I’m really thinking that the Stantec report is something that we should all read, particularly if you’re involved in transit policy , who you are. In any event, I need to have more time for this to sit, and I’m going to support this in full today. But I see that part of this is directing LTC to review these following opportunities.

I’d like to see a little bit more specificity on that. And I don’t know if that requires an amendment to the motion, but I want to say what my concerns are and what I ‘d like to see, if I may. What I don’t want to see is this just sent back to LTC without further procedural guidance. Is this going just to LTC management or is this going to go to the board for discussion?

Is the board being asked to hold a public participation meeting before Q4 on these items or are we just leading that to the discretion to the board? Or are we just telling the board not to do anything other than let management come back in Q4? Because I think we are going to have to pace ourselves on this file and take some purposeful action. There are a lot of things in this report and I’ll have more to say about 4.3 and 4.

  1. But with respect to 4.2, I really want to get into a little bit more detail about the all-door boarding for the Rapid Transit Network. How is that going to work? I’d like to see a little bit more discussion about exactly what we ‘re asking for here.

And if we go If we go through the entire stand tech report or even the summary that Steph sent to us, you can dig out some answers to that questions. But in order to help LTC, could we be a little bit more explicit about what we’re asking for here? And I’d particularly be interested in hearing from my colleagues who are on LTC. So I’ll just yield at this point.

I’m really happy to see this report, and I thank you for it. Councilor, just to clarify that you didn’t have a question for staff there, it was just a spur dialogue. It’s the spur dialogue, I guess ultimately, I would ask staff that they would like to say a little bit more about some options for old door boarding, but I don’t think we want to get into those types of operational details at this meeting. I think that’s something for LTC.

Thank you, I’ll go to Ms. Share. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Councilor, there’s a few others who asked through the report, but we appreciate the interest in the details.

With respect to procedure, the request would use the existing transit by-law to refer this as a matter of strategic importance to the commission. So it would go to the commission via the chair, who then provided to staff. Staff at LTC have been part of the process through this work. Obviously, we needed their input and insight into developing the work.

There are a number of ways that you can do dual door boarding, and it depends a bit on the fair collection system, your security processes, and even the type of bus that you’re choosing. So we would be looking to our colleagues at LTC to evaluate that and report back as to what they believe the best path forward is. It is imperative, however, as from our perspective in Stantax, as the system becomes bus ier in order to maintain those frequent headways that we have both door boarding in the future. It’s probably not required day one, but certainly will be in future days.

Councillor? I’ll yield for now. I’d really love to hear what some other people think. Thank you, look to committee.

Okay, I’ll go to Councillor Frank, then Councill or Ferrera. Thank you, yes, I appreciate these reports and I am also reading the Stantec report, but taking a little bit longer ‘cause it’s 175 pages. Through the chair, I was wondering in regards to the communications for the public awareness programs. I know in KW when they launched their LRT system as part of their promotional efforts, they did a month of free ridership to really get people on board and checking out the new system.

And I’m just wondering what timing and who is responsible for that kind of idea. I assume it would be a budget case to be able to provide that. So through the chair to staff, I was just wondering at what point that kind of promotional opportunity could be discussed. Thank you, I’ll go to my chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The responsibility for the ultimate operation promotion of the system is with LTC. We at Will, however, be at City staff be working with them collaboratively to ensure we have a successful launch and we’re leveraging our shared strengths and communications or media channels to ensure that we’re promoting this for Londoners and visitors to the city to try out. Certainly we’re open to things like some fair free days, fair free periods, promoting for various types of events.

Even we’ve had conversations about engaging with things like the music office and encouraging and entertainment route on the East Link. So there’s a lot of ideas that have been sort of tossed around at a high level at this point. We’re not quite there yet. We’re still focused on the final ends of construction.

But we will be as we start talking about moving buses on parts of the system in the next few years, working on how we have that conversation to promote and ensure that lenders understand the transportation choice it provides. So we’ll capture those as potential ideas. And if there are other ones, we’re happy to hear them. Councillor Frank.

Thank you, yes. And just in follow up, I think that sounds good to me. I think it’d be great to have the two comms teams in lockstep just ‘cause I know kind of leading up to this, we’ve had a lot of city comms communicating the infrastructure changes and like the red pain on the road. And I know that LTC will be responsible for the operations of it but it’d be great if that kind of was seamless for the community because I think both the physical infrastructure as well as the bus and the actual operations, it should all blend hopefully into a beautiful service.

So I look forward to seeing that. I know that at LTC, we have been chatting about enhancing our communications as well. So no further questions on this one from me. Thank you.

I’ll go to Councillor Ferreira next. Thank you, Chair, through you. I appreciate the report. I’ll be getting through that 175 page document as well.

I haven’t yet. I do, I did appreciate kind of, I guess, the focus on just making sure the efficiency of the rapid transit system itself and the quick ness of it. And that’s really what the whole goal of success is about just making sure that people can get on. buses can get moving.

People can get off, and everything is flowing like that. So some of my questions might overlap, but I just wanted to go back to, I guess, the expanded fair retail network, like some of the ideas that I did see kind of in the report. And I don’t want, I understand we may not have the operational details specifically yet, but just from what I’m getting, there’s going to be, you know, potentially more stores that are going to be selling fair tickets, potentially a move away from fair tickets and being more digital are actually having that option so people can reload on their phones or have some kind of profile that they can load there or even at the transit stations as well as wondering if you can just, if there is any information that we have right now, if you can just expand on some of the ideas that could be out there to expand the way passengers can pay their fares. I’ll go to Ms.

Share and team. Madam Chair, we actually do have our consultant online and they may be able to provide some insight into some of the things they contemplated . Ultimately, we will all be looking back to our friends at LTC to report back on those that are most appropriate, but you have touched on a number of them, which is more places to access, purchasing cards or tickets, as well as the ability to move seamlessly with an electronic card or with your electronic wallet on your phone. But I do believe we have our consultants online as well.

Thank you. We do. I believe it’s Mr. Gible.

We’d like to go ahead. Yes. Hello. Thank you.

Can you hear me okay? background. Go ahead. Wonderful.

Thank you. Well, through the chair, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Yes, there are several options for moving forward with Fair Payment, a retail network. We understand that LTC does sell paper tickets through a variety of retail locations at the present date.

What the Stantec team more or less envisioned was a retail network in which cards could be reloaded and it gives the opportunity to reload fair media with cash at these various retail locations and that lessens the burden of cash handling by LTC which is an expense that they have to take on but it also just broadly expands the wider opportunity for persons who may not have the resources to tie their fair media with a credit card to be able to reload their fair media with a cash option. Thank you. I’ll go back to Councillor Fer rera. Thank you for that.

I understand that we still have to send this LTC and there’s so more discussion about that but I just wanted to get that information. With respect to the all-door boarding I understand that there are already agreements with the new flyer company for purchases of new buses. I just wanted to ask staff or the consultant online stand tech. If we were to, let’s say, decide that maybe doors should be expanded or we’re going to be using both doors, is there - I guess what’s the feasibility or the likeliness that we’d actually be able to have an all-door boarding system when we already have these agreements in place?

Is it just a matter of like some minor adjustments because the buses are being built for us or are there any barriers that we might be we should be aware of or any risks. Thank you Madam Chair. I think it would depend on the nature of the elder boarding system LTC ultimately selects should that be what’s approved. There are options to modify the rolling stock that is being ordered or that stock could ultimately transition to conventional transit service and we’d be replaced with new buses at that time as well.

So there are a number of options available and we would be looking to our colleagues at LTC to report back one option, so they think our best to suit us. But no, there’s no risk in having ordered the rolling stop buses to start the RT service. We needed to be in the queue to ensure they arrived. And there are opportunities to either do some minor — as we — with every bus we receive, at almost every vehicle we receive, there is always some minor customization that is required to ensure that they meet our fleet needs.

Councillor. Okay. Thank you for that. And my last one.

I read this one with some excitement, and I understand that this is not necessarily for the system itself, but it’s just for, I guess, the awareness, and that’s the brand, the new identity that the Rapid Transit is going to have. I just wanted to know if I get — I’m not asking you for what the name is going to be, what the colors are going to be. But I just wanted to know, any information you have, when should we expect that? Will that be coming within the next year or so?

Just any information you have there? Sure. Thank you for the moment to confer with my team. There’s a lot of information in the report.

And so, yes, we would need to make a decision in a relatively straightforward and timely way with respect to what a potential branding scheme could look like for the buses. So I’d say, yes, within the next year is a reasonable thing. We have not at this point selected a name or colors. We would obviously need to be working with some experts in that marketing and visual identity space with our colleagues at LTC.

There are some trade-offs that go with that with respect to the ability to spareboard buses. We can continue to provide that information working with LTC as part of the report back towards the end of this year. Councillor? Okay, thank you for that.

While I’ll be in full support of this, I appreciate the work. I appreciate the information that I got from this . And like my colleagues, I’ll be checking out that stand take report in full as well before the next council. So thank you.

Thank you. I will look for other speakers on this item. Okay, seeing none, we will open that to vote. Sorry, we were asked to separate this.

We’ll start party. Folding the vote, motion carries, 13 to zero. Okay, we’ll open part B. Folding the vote, motion carries, 11 to two.

Madam Chair, Councillor Palos is just gonna take your lead for the rest of the meeting at this time? Thank you. Thank you. With that, we’ll move on to item 4.3, which is the London Transit Route Planning and Management Review, looking for a mover and a seconder on this item.

Councillor Cuddy and Councillor Trossa, thank you , and looking for speakers. Councillor Stevenson, go ahead. Thank you, yeah, I just had a question around C . It says, the administrations at the Corporation and the London Transit Commission be directed to collectively create a more structured collaboration process to better integrate and achieve alignment on planning operations and administrative initiatives.

There’s no report back or anything, so I’m just wondering why that’s in there and what the expectations are? Go to Ms. Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair.

While we work very closely with our colleagues at London Transit, with the exception of a meeting between the general manager, the chief treasurer, and myself that happens bi-monthly, It tends to be either project based or ad hoc. So it’ll be in response to a funding opportunity. It might be in response to development. It may be in response to direction from council or it may be project based like the mobility master plan.

So the vision for this was just to let council and the LTC know that our desire was to set up perhaps a quarterly forum where we see senior staff, not just from engineering and from finance, but potentially from neighborhood and community wide services, from planning, getting together to proactively look at the things that might be before us and review things that we’ve done together to learn from those opportunities. So just a staff-to-staff opportunity that’s a bit more structured, minuteed agenda to ensure that we’re having those conversations and everybody who should be at the table is reliably at the table. Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thank you very much, that sounds good.

And I guess I will just ask one other question around the route planning because it still is a recurring concern in the oldest village area around the impacts of the rapid transit routes taking from the valued routes along the industry. And I hear different things. And so what will be the involvement in the public or the council in terms of ensuring or awareness or input into maintaining those dentistry routes? Go to Ms.

Chair. Madam Chair, I believe Ms. Pelletchney is on the call and may be better equipped to speak to how they are going to adjust their routes with respect to bringing the rapid transit spines online. We also have our consultant available, but I think Ms.

Pletch, you might be the right person to go to. Thank you. Okay. We’re just going to give her a moment to log on.

I did have one other question, maybe I could ask it. Madam Chair, Mr. Hall can provide some information on the original question and certainly while we’re waiting for it. Oh, there’s Ms.

Pletch. Okay. So, Councillor, would you mind just restating your question? I won’t count it on your time, just so that Ms.

P letch, you can hear the question. Yes, and thank you. I was just asking around the root planning portion of this report and there’s a lot of ongoing concern in the oldest village area regarding the impacts of the rapid transit and concerns that the buses are gonna shift down to King Street and they’re gonna lose the short stops along Dundas Street. So I just wondered what the public input process or council’s input will be in those decisions.

Thank you and I’ll go to Ms. Plessany. Thank you for joining us. Please go ahead.

through the chair, just want to make sure you can hear me. We can hear you. Okay, perfect. Through the chair, so any adjustments like that would be part of our annual service planning process, which LTC has a consultation process.

And specific when there are adjustments like that in a specific neighborhood, we would have drop-in sessions targeted for that neighborhood. We do direct mail to identified areas like that to make sure that everyone in that area is aware of the consultation that’s going on so that we can gather that feedback. But the overall intent is not to reduce levels of service in any specific area. Routes may be adjusted so that they’re not all traveling on the same corridor, but the intent is to maintain service in areas that it already is in, just better spread it out and utilize it so that those feeder routes are feeding that rapid transit line.

Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. Okay, that’s great to hear that there’ll be feedback prior to the changes being an opportunity for feedback prior to the changes being made. And like I said, just the concern I hear is there’s a lot of dependence on that route, on the frequent stops for people, especially with mobility issues, versus the longer walk to the rapid transit points that are a little further south.

There’s also some safety concerns in the neighborhood. So maybe just as an initial feedback. The other question as I’m talking about safety is in this management review, maybe I missed it, but there’s a lot of concern about safety on the buses. And I just wondered if that’s being put in here as well, either in KPIs or in terms of really discussing how to ensure that people feel safe and want to get on the LTC buses.

Ms. Plushy. Well, certainly that’s something that we continue to work on, I’m not sure that was identified specifically in the report that’s in front of council, but it certainly is an issue that we are aware of , and we are continuing to work on various solutions to improve that. Counselor?

Okay, thank you. I’ll just leave it there that it’s, I think a critical piece to the success of expanding transit in our city. And so wherever that can be incorporated explicitly too, so that the public can see what’s being done and how these problems are being addressed would be helpful, thanks. Thank you, I’ll look for other speakers on this item.

Councilor Trossa. I’m going to, through the chair, just repeat a concern that I tried to raise, though not very forcefully before, and I think I’m gonna be a little bit more adamant this time. I don’t want this to just go back for a report in Q4. In particular, report number 4.3 has a number of items that go well beyond.

This is something that we routinely do and plan for as a transit agency. And when we look specifically on page 97 and under 3.1 transit planning and operations, this resolution is asking LTC to look in some detail at those six bullets. And the notion of ridership versus coverage raises some very compelling questions, which could well, if we take seriously the difference between ridership versus coverage that’s being outlined in this report, which I hope to read a little bit more before the council meeting, there could be major changes here. And I think LTC is going to have to look at a new way of thinking about how they operationalize their roots.

when we talk about how transit systems can be created in layers. And maybe I should ask that as a question since the consultant and staff is here. Could you just explain in a little bit more detail what is meant by layers and how will the different layers play out? What are we exactly?

What are we asking LTC to do between now and Q4 with respect to looking at layers? ‘cause this notion of layers is fascinating. Ms. Chair, thank you, Madam Chair.

I think this is a good opportunity to take advantage of Mr. Gible’s expertise and provide that information. Thank you, I’ll go to Mr. Gible.

Well, thank you so much through the chair, yes. So when we talk about layers in the overall service network, those are really kind of tiers of the service system, almost like a pyramid. So your baseline system is your local network. So those will be currently like the community circulators or the frequent services, basically the feeder routes that will go into the BRT system.

That’s your baseline network that gets people from their homes to other rapid transit services, and then if they need to make a transfer ultimately to their final destination. But as you go up those layers, the frequency of service, the intensity of service, and the intensity of transit prioritization and transit infrastructure tends to increase. So as you go from local services to limited stop services to rapid transit to express, that the speed and frequency of service tends to increase with the exception of express can be point A to point B, although the way London Transit currently operates expresses a little different than how some regions currently do. So that’s generally what we mean by layers.

of your baseline local network, you have your rapid transit system, and you have your express network. Thank you. Could you, through the chair, talk a little bit more about how you see the potential ways of having this evolution from a radial to a grid network, and perhaps that would require talking a little bit about defining a radial network and a grid network? Mr.

Gible. Absolutely. Through the chair, yes. So , as an agency, I’ve worked with a couple of agencies who transition from radial networks to where they’re largely focused on people getting in and out of downtown.

However, London has historically and currently operates a fairly strong system that could be identified as a grid. However, as rapid transit services open up, the need to minimize duplication of service along these high investment corridors is really necessary. And to really maximize the investment in rapid transit, services really need to be oriented towards feeding those high capacity corridors. So some routes may be adjusted to where they are no longer paralleling or operating, interlining with the VRT corridors, but rather they may be shifted to intersect with them to enable a higher degree of transfers into that rapid transit system.

And then the rapid transit system will carry the high volume of riders on these high demand corridors as well as the riders who transfer over from the local system. Councillor Trossa. Thank you. Just based on my reading of the summary, which if I haven’t mentioned yet, thank you very much for the summary.

It was very good and I’m looking forward to reading the stand tech report. But the idea of transfer options is, I think, crucial. If LTC wants to deal with the problem of a better public perception of its service, which should result in increased ridership, I think the transfer option problem is a sore point. Because what I hear time and time again, it’s the transfers that create a lot of the problems for people.

And could you just sort of expand a little bit on what you found from other jurisdictions and what you wrote in this report about different ways of thinking about transfer options. Thank you, I’ll go back to Mr. Gible. Thank you, yeah, through the chair, yes.

So transfers when they are in a place that is useful to say more or less, but in places with high degrees of activity or where one frequent route meets another, that really opens up the network to a lot more trips, to a lot more people. And so when we envision transfers between rapid transit and local or feeder services, we certainly looked at a variety of locations and regions throughout the United States and throughout Canada, to identify best practices as it comes to navigating and identifying and designing transfer opportunities well-designed transfer areas. We did find that wayfinding is of critical importance when it comes to facilitating transfers. Excuse me, particularly as it pertains to where the passenger needs to go, to go in a specific direction.

Once, say, if I put myself in the shoes of someone who’s riding rapid transit and I get off the vehicle, but I need to make a transfer, I need to know which side of the street to go to in order to go the proper direction, instead of getting maybe getting to the wrong bus stop and then heading the opposite direction that I want to. So signage, wayfinding, maps. And then in some locations, this wasn’t necessarily included in the report, but international examples do include textured sidewalk materials that help those who are visually impaired get from bus stop to bus stop, but signage is also really important in which transferring to bus stops that might not be visible from the rapid transit station. That’s where it’s really most important.

The goal really should be to keep them visible from one another, but that’s not always going to be feasible based on roadway, geometry, sight lines, building in frontages, size of intersections, things of that nature. So the way finding aspect of it, and then expanding on that to include way finding methods for those who may be hearing or visually impaired , are really important to the over functionality and usability of the system. Councillor Trussa. Thank you.

You also speak about the concept of mobility hubs . And I found that part of the report that I read, particularly insightful, because under our mobility master plan, we’re supposed to be thinking about ways of doing a shift in the mobility from automobile trips to not just public transit, but also also cycling, I should say scooters, and I should say pedestrian of foot traffic. And your discussion of mobility hubs really raises a number of very, very potentially innovative approaches to making it more comfortable for people to use transit, at least for part of their trip. And you talk about the mobility hubs on page, I think it’s on page 99 right before recommended next steps.

We’re currently planning mobility hubs at Fanshaw e, White Oaks Bowl, White Oaks Bowl, downtown? 30 seconds. I would like to hear a little bit more about what we could be doing to push along in the concept of mobility hubs in the medium range term, not just in the long term, because this is something we need. We needed at Oxford in Wonderland, we needed downtown.

Could you expand on this portion of your report? Thank you. I’ll go to the Mr. Gable, and then you’ve about five seconds remaining.

Thank you, yeah, I’m happy to expand upon that. So mobility hubs are almost like transit centers, but they’re more. They are hubs for accessing all kinds of mobility services, including transit, shared vehicles, hailed vehicles, shared mobility services, or shared bikes. And then, but when it comes to accelerating that program or getting them into the medium-term future.

There are some smaller examples of mobility hubs that are a little less robust in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where it may just be a sign that shows the available mobility services there, including transit, but they can also be quite expansive into the larger transit center facilities that include community resources and other shared mobility services. So in terms of a medium-term strategy to getting this done, I think that’s probably best left to LTC to discuss. I certainly don’t want to commit them to anything , but there are a variety of scales and options that can be pursued for a mobility hub that can accelerate or lengthen a timeline. Councillor, Ms.

Chair, go ahead. Madam Chair, I may ask Mr. Hall to provide some additional information on the City of London specific plans with respect to integration to active transportation, micro-mobility, walking modes. Those are pieces that the city delivers on the non-bus side of the integrated network.

And it is, as the councilors noted, an integral part of the mobility master plan as well. Thank you, I’ll go to Mr. Hall. Through the chair, mobility hubs can be many things and serve many modes.

And so I think the examples provided Fanshawe College, it primarily will end up being local transit to rapid transit as sort of within a mode, but also at Fanshawe College there’s lots of pedestrian access with new development nearby, potential cycling access. And the examples provided in Toronto and LA being sort of leaders in mobility hub creation, often it’s to do with cycling, parking, and the land use context around it. So allowing increased zoning permissions near the transit villages. And we have a robust system in London for that as well, ready in our zoning.

So we’re talking about everything here and we’re talking about mobility hubs and mobility master plan as well as this report. There’s a potential park and ride in the south end that again would allow people to drive their vehicle to access transit and recommendation within this report to proceed or to pursue a downtown mobility hub that would facilitate better access between regional buses, local transit, rapid transit, and our regional rail system. Thanks. Thank you and to close, next steps, I am really uncomfortable just saying come back to us in Q4 with a report.

Can we do something in the interim to get some evidence that we’re moving this along? And just to finish off your question, it was something else that can be done before Q4 to move that along. Yes, I’m wondering if we could just ask that question for you? Yes, I think I’ve made my point .

I don’t want to just leave this sit. Thank you Madam Chair. With respect to the the work that is going to be requested of LTC should counsel pass this report at its next meeting. I believe that Ms.

Pelletch and her team do need that time between now and year end to report back on how they might address some fairly complicated changes to how they root and plan and manage their system. I believe Ms. Pelletch needs still in the call, but I do understand that this is a significant ask of her and her team, and I suspect they will need that time. Thank you.

And Ms. Plush, if you wanted to comment, please feel free to go ahead. Through the chair, as Ms. Chair, just indicated , this is a significant undertaking, some of which will require some fairly in-depth analysis.

So we will, I’m certainly be discussing that with the commission in terms of the timelines when the report eventually gets over here. Thank you. I had Councillor Frank next. Thank you and again, appreciate the report and the consultant report as well.

A couple of questions to the chair to staff. I’m just wondering in regards to BII, it suggests some interim service enhancements for the North and West routes while we await hopefully some provincial and federal funding. I’m wondering if that is feasible in the next five years if we are able to do that kind of infrastructure like you jumps on Sarnia to Wonderland, that kind of things where we, you know, change an intersection and put down some paint. And if that’s kind of what they mean by interim service enhancements.

Thank you, over to Ms. Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will start and Mr.

Halme wish to add something too that we have done a previous review of the former , what we’re called the North and West corridors under the original bus rapid transit plan that did include some interim improvements to accommodate transit on the locations where there was not rapid transit approved at that time. So we believe we have a fairly good basis for what those could be with respect to things like queue jump lanes, potentially some enhancements to service some stop expansions. So yes, I believe those could be delivered if we have both budget and property available. And those are things that we could see in advance of what is a more lengthy process to do the rapid transit lane along Western Road that was approved as part of the mobility master plan.

Mr. Hall may have a few additional details as well. Mr. Hall?

Through the chair, part of what was envisioned to explore further with LTC for this North and West corridor. Could be anything from infrastructure at the street level, like in pants, bus stops, more information, but certainly with our consultants help the encouragement for anything that can increase reliability on those corridors and serve more passengers in the interim while we await their full rollout of rapid transit. Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes, I think that kind of enhancement is desperately needed given how long it can take to do a full RT route, so appreciate staff looking into that.

I do notice a couple of mentions of the need for micro-mobility to be able to connect the folks for the first and last kilometer. And I’m just wondering if staff could refresh our minds as to where we’re at as a city with those options . Thank you, I’ll go to Ms. Share.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The city had previously gone out to the marketplace to look for a vendor for an e-bike share program, so a rental program that can be accessed at various locations for users. At that time, the respondents indicated a need for an ongoing operational subsidy on an annual basis or the ability to exclusively operate an e-scooter rental program. As Council knows, we opted out of doing an e-sc ooter share pilot under the provincial legislation.

So even if there were a way to work that into an RFP, it was not an incentive we were able to offer a potential vendor and there was no funding available in this multi-year budget to provide an ongoing operating incentive to a vendor who would operate said systems. So we’re exploring what potential future micro-mobility programs could look like, and that would be something that we would bring forward in the next multi-year budget. In the interim on sort of a more private ownership side, we do have a number of plans to enhance things like secure bike parking, that while not a micro-mobility shared system does allow folks to use things like personally owned, bicycles, e-bikes, e-scooters at this time, although there’s a report coming certainly next cycle on that to enhance their first and last mile journeys as well. So we’re continuing to work on those active transportation and micro mobility connections, the ability to go back to market with a subsidy is not something we’d had direction from council to continue with.

Councilor Frank. Thanks. And then my last question is just in regards to again, there’s some reference for folks to be able to walk up to a station and tap a card and be able to pay and add top up their card instead of what we have right now, which is online, and then it cycles in the next day. I’m wondering those gray rectangles that are at the BRT stations, are those intended to be those fair boxes where people could walk up and load up a card?

Ms. Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, the intent is to have a ticket vending station that can allow people to engage in e-purchases related to their transit journey in the future once those systems are in place with the LTC.

Councillor? Thank you. And my last question, I was just going past the Queen’s Street, RT station in front of Canada Life. And I noticed they had the signs up.

And right now, the signs say no buses coming at this time, which I assume is a placeholder, because I know that there are buses coming. I’m wondering when will we be able to see, I know that RT for that area, I’m not sure when it’s gonna officially roll out. Can we start seeing though, like the schedule show up on those things for the regular conventional buses that we have now? because it does seem deceiving for people to be standing there and saying no buses are coming when there’s totally buses coming.

Ms. Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Where LTC’s conventional service is tied into the locations of the new rapid transit stops .

They are already using those stops. So there are a number of places that the stops can be used, but not all of the stops coincide with current services. So if Ms. Palash, she’s still on the line, she may have some comments on how she’s integrating the new assets into her system in advance of the RT buses starting to run on the RT routes.

Thank you, I’ll go to Ms. Pleschney. Sorry about that, was having trouble unmuting. Through the chair, my understanding, specifically to the reference from Councilor Frank, is there are some issues currently getting hydro connected to those signs at that particular station.

However, the ones that are working are showing local bus services that are coming, the GTFS feeds are working, but there is an issue at that particular station with respect to getting everything connected and we are working on it. Councilor Frank. Oh, Mr. Chair.

My apologies, Councilor and Madam Chair. I misunderstood the question. Mr. Spal you has some information on the progress on that particular location.

Thank you, Mr. Spal you go ahead. Through the chair. Thank you.

It is intended to show the buses that will be serving that stop. However, there’s a few locations where we are having some errors or some issues with the system we’re working with supplier to get those facts. So it is intended to show all the bus arrival information for the stop, including local stops. Councilor Frank.

Thank you. I’m delighted to hear that, ‘cause I thought might as well use it if it’s there. So great to hear. No further questions at this time, but again, look forward to this rolling out.

Thank you, looking for other speakers on this item. Councilor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair. Just the one question for the Stantec report that was released after, is there any way we could have that just to be noted on the public record attached to the council agenda or distributed somehow to the public.

Just conferring. I’ll go to Ms. Share and then maybe to the clerk. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Certainly we’ve no concern about the, we’re just conferring on the best way to do so because we did not establish a get involved for these particular reviews. We don’t actually have a website to connect it to . So if the clerk has a suggestion on the best way to handle it, certainly we’d be open to sharing it. There’s nothing confidential in the document.

we’re just waiting for the very final sign version of it, which we haven’t have shared. Good, Mr. Shelters. Thank you for the chair.

Certainly we could arrange to distribute it directly to council and work with civic administration for means to make it publicly accessible. Attaching it to agenda. There are some complexities procedurally with doing that, but certainly happy to work with civic administration. Councilor Rivera.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Madam Chair, we will talk to our colleagues communications and see if there’s not an easy way to provide it in the public forum for people’s review and I’m sure we can figure something out. Thank you Governor Councillor Ferrera.

Thank you for that that’s all. Okay looking for any other speakers okay seeing none we will open the vote on 4.3. Voting the vote motion carries 12 to 0. Thank you that takes us to item 4.4 the review of subsidized transit programs in London I’ll look for a mover and seconder for this item Councillor Frank, Councillor Ferrera, and with that I’ll look for speakers.

Councillor Chassa, go ahead. I was looking around hoping somebody else would put their hand up first because I’m talking too much. All right, I’ll say what I want to say then. First of all, I want to make it very clear.

It’s in the report and I want people to really fully understand this. The university students and the Fanshawe students pay for their service. 100% fully. There is There’s no public subsidy for the university service, for the financial service.

And I just want to make sure that I have that right because there have been reports, there have been comments that have been made in the past about how we’re subsidizing students. And I just wanted to be really clear that everybody understands that I’m not getting this wrong. So somebody verify this. There is zero public subsidy for the Western program and for the financial program.

and that is paid 100% by student fees. And in fact, if there’s any subsidy, the students that don’t use the transit are still paying. If there’s any subsidy, it’s the students who are paying for the service and aren’t using it, who are subsidizing the students who are using it . But I just wanna make sure I have that right, ‘cause this is an important foundational point.

Thank you, Ogo to Ms. Smith. Thank you, and through the chair year, correct. All full-time students are automatically enrolled in the program, there’s no option to opt out, and it is fully covered by students.

So trust me. And it’s also noted in the report that the Fair Box revenue, the fair revenue of LTC is approximately 49%. It may have the decimal off a little bit, but it’s approximately 49% of their revenues come from Bancia and the University of Western Ontario USC program, is that correct? I’ll go to Ms.

Smith. Thank you and through the chair, The situation pass accounts for 49.7% of the total system ridership. Councillor Trossa. This may call for speculation, but I just want to get some general sense of what would be the implication for the financial viability of the system if either or both Western students or Fanshawe students decided they were not going to renew the program, which is something that they would have the legal right to do at the end of the program.

I’ll go to Ms. Smith to see if she cares to speculate on that matter. Thank you. And through the chair, as outlined in our report, it’s the single largest revenue source for the LTC.

But if Ms. Pelesny Stillan, she may wish to provide any additional comments. Ms. Pelesny, any additional comments to add speculation on this item?

Through the chair, I think what’s important to recognize is that certainly, as the council indicated, it’s a contract where either party has the opportunity to opt out. However, the majority of students based on our ridership analysis do continue to use the bus to get to and from campus as well as around the city. So if that program didn’t exist, any students wishing to take the bus would revert into the remaining fair categories that are available, whether it be monthly pass, ticket cash, whatever option they chose. So it’s not like that revenue would entirely go away.

Students that were using the bus would just choose the fare that would be appropriate to them. Thank you through the chair. Do we have any way of estimating what leakage there might be? In other words, if those programs went away and we were dependent on the same students using the fare box do we have any estimates as to what percentage of students would continue to do that and pay as you go through the fare box has any study been done through the chair no there’s not been a study done thank you I think I’m just going to yield to see if other people want to talk because I have some questions about the other programs thank you I’m looking for other speakers Councillor Frank thank you and through the chair to staff I just had one question.

So I just want to confirm, like I am interested personally in a universal income based program. I see a lot of value there and it makes a lot of sense to me. But I’m just wondering, staff are going to be bringing back those three different budget cases that are listed. I, I, I, I, I, and then future council would pick one of those options.

I’ll go to see Ms. Smith. Thank you. As outlined in the recommendation, our direct our direction would be to report back on all three unless at this time council wish to remove one of those options once they finalize their recommendation.

Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes. Well, I personally have strong support for the third one, the universal income-based program. But I don’t necessarily want to pull it if it’s only going to be like one or two votes to only have that.

So I’ll just say I really like that idea and look forward to a future report on that and would prefer that. Okay. I’m looking for other speakers. I have a Councillor Stevenson next.

Thank you. I just wondered, we’ve got the subsidized transit programs increasing while we’ve got ridership the same or decreasing. And I just wondered if there’s any comments that can be shared around what that means for our transit ridership, it seems to me we’re losing a demographic to offset this. And I wondered if we know what that demographic might be.

Thank you, I’ll go to Ms. Smith, and then I’ll go to Ms. Plesch News. She has anything to add.

Thank you, and through the chair, I can only speak to ridership of our subsidized transit programs and actuality, both seniors, seniors programming in our income-related programming have caught up since the pandemic and are even exceeding it. So if you look at the demographics with seniors, our seniors are increasing, and that’s building part of our cost pressure. Our other part of the cost pressure is the income-related program, which is also an increasing year over a year too, probably tied to affordability and people’s ability to pay everything. So if they are eligible for an income related bus pass, they are applying for it more than they have in previous years.

Our other programs are either maintaining or slowly catching up pre-pandemic, but it’s really the seniors and the income related that are putting the biggest cost pressures on our subsidized transit program currently. Ms. Plessany, did you want to add anything onto that? The only thing that I would add, Madam Chair, is that the decline overall in ridership is tied directly to the decline in participants in the tuition pass program, which is the result of the caps on federal, or sorry, on foreign students.

So, they really are unrelated as Ms. Smith indicated, the increases in terms of subsidy, go hand in hand with increases of ridership in those categories. Thank you, I’ll go back to Councillor Stevenson . What can be shared around the number of people who are riding the bus and not paying?

I’ll just explain ‘cause I can see some confused cases, but I’ve heard from several people around the issues, particularly along the core area corridor where there are people who are just riding the bus and they’re riding it for free and that the policies allow them to do that. And what I’m being told is it’s contributing to some of the safety issues on the bus. So I just wondered how that ties in to maybe these subsidized programs. If we’re not, like it just seems like there’s, well, I’ll put it this way.

Is there, what are the policies around people getting on the bus and not paying? Thank you. I will go to Ms. Smith, and then I’ll go to Ms.

Paleshney on anecdotally people not paying to ride transit. Thank you and through the chair, for our subsidized transit program, we do allow children 12 and under to ride the bus for free. So for us, that’s the only allowable. The rest provide either, we either provide tickets or passes that are shared at the front of the bus when they enter, but I can turn it over to Ms.

Paleshney for anything else. Thank you and I’ll go to Ms. Paleshney. I don’t believe the counselor was speaking about children.

through the chair. So with respect to LTC policies, it is in fact our policy that an operator will remind passengers that the expectation is that they pay a fair, and but they will not not let them ride. That’s part of our health and safety programs, with respect to making efforts to avoid potential altercations on the bus. Operators do also have the support of our inspectors, if there are repeat offenders, they can engage with an inspector and have them have a conversation with that rider and repeated abuse of fair policies can result in someone being banned from the service.

So we do certainly have programs in place and we do have expectations that fairs are paid, but we do, operators will not deny someone a ride because they aren’t able to pay. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. And my understanding is that the bus drivers track the number of times people come on not paying.

Is that correct? Ms. Plushy. Through the chair, yes, there is a recording mechanism on the fare box that operators can keep track of that.

Again, depending on the route and how busy things are at the door, that’s probably not happening consistently, but there is a mechanism for operators to be able to do that. Councilor? Thank you, and through you, just wondering if that is something that could be tracked and reported and shared with council in terms of the impacts that that’s having on safety, because the stories that I’m hearing is that it’s , say people who are homeless, who are riding the bus, it’s causing safety issues might be impacting our ridership and some of our overall goals here, and knowing that it is being tracked, I would just like to support that in some way. So maybe it ties more into the previous thing around operational review and management, but addressing those issues and what we can do about them as a council, I think goes a long way.

Some of the stories I’ve heard are really, really concerning actually. So I’ll just leave it there. Thank you. So just to reframe this back to the topic of subsidized transit, because a lot of this is getting into operational things that the commission deals with, I will go to Ms.

Palash me to see if you have any final comments on how that information is reported to the commission. Through the chair, we do track incidents, obviously any kind of incidents of violence the workplace or that type of thing on board buses and that is reported to the commission on an annual basis at a high level in terms of incidents, the root cause of those incidents and that type of thing that is something that is reported annually, not necessarily tied directly to non-fair payment, but incidents of that nature are tracked and reported on an annual basis. Councillor Stevenson. Okay, on my speaker’s list, I have Councillor Fer reira next followed by the Mayor.

Thank you, Chair. I won’t be too long. I just wanted to have some questions. I appreciate the report.

I do want to see all the options and potentially maybe a mix of options. Like looking at option three, the Universal Income Based Program, like the way I read that is obviously it’s based on income alone. And I just wanted to ask if like in the future, if we were to get that option back and the universal based income program would be based on income would we see I guess the 12 and under free pass go away would we see senior tickets and their prices go away would we see those I guess those more targeted discounts be removed and just focused on the the income base going to miss smith thank you thank you and true the chair so we have six existing subsidized transit programs for option number 3, the universal income based. We would look at which programs we would include or not include in that.

We could provide options for if you brought all programs in versus options if you brought in two or three. Children 12 and under ride for free is more a ridership increase program in future riders versus some of our other income related. seniors program, for example, right now, is a universal discount on tickets only, not on passes . It’s 25% versus a deeper subsidization we do, for example, for income-related or youth, so that that are the ideas we would look at and what other municipalities are doing around a universal income-tested program.

So we would look at which programs would best fit with that and where the benefits may have more impact for some of the riders. Councilor Ferrer. Okay, thank you for that. So is there the potential maybe under option two or another type of option that we would have like the universal income-based program and potentially some targeted programs as well, just kind of the mix between the two ‘cause from what I understand, some of these more targeted programs may not necessarily fall within the income-based category.

I’ll go to Ms. Smith. Thank you, and through the chair, that would be covered probably in option number two, where we would look at maybe increasing the subsidy levels, expanding the fair types, the types of subsidies to other subsidized transit programs, but not a universal program. It would be just some modifications.

Councillor? Okay, thank you for that. So I would be interested in seeing all the options. I think the maintain current program, the current programs, obviously we have some issues here, that I would like to be able to see all the options when the report comes back.

So those are all my questions, thanks. Thank you, I’ll go to Mayor Morgan. Thank you, I just have a couple of questions. On the options coming forward, so given some of the responses and the related decline in ridership, particularly associated with a decline in international students or student pass holders , it seems to me that first off, I wanna recognize a significant amount, they contribute to the transit service.

And I, when I was on the student government, was fully supportive of the transit pass system. In fact, it’s an exceptionally great deal for students at 280 bucks a month compared to the, for the full cost, you know, city pass, you’re talking about a discount of 78.5%, like that is off the annual cost. So it’s a really great deal. Now, I know not every student uses it, but it seems to me if there’s fewer people buying discount, perhaps at the appropriate time and negotiation and the rate to be reflective of the kind of volume that’s being purchased, and still getting an incredible deal, might be one of the options, because the options before us seems to be mainly focused on enhancements to the program.

But given the revenue piece is directly associated with this, and that there are a significant number of fewer passes being basically sold as part of the student transit program at the secondary institutions or post-secondary institutions, would we not at some point have a conversation with the students who probably have a vested interest in the strong viability of the transit system to say, “Listen, you’ve got way less passes that you’re purchasing, so the price is going to be a little bit more. Instead of 288, it might be still a great deal at three-something.” So I just wonder, that doesn’t seem to be clear that that would be discussed in any of the options and I wonder if that’s part of the discussions in any way for the things that are coming back or is it all, you know, basically potentially more discounts or adjustments to them? Is there anything, any assessment or discussions about the related, you know, bulk volume passes that are being purchased that would be part of this assessment? Thank you.

I will go to Ms. Smith and then I’ll go to Ms. Polashny but I believe because this report is about the subsidized transit program that what you’re asking is more an LTC question, but I’ll go to our staff first, Ms. Smith.

Thank you. And through the chair, you’re correct. The agreements with the university and college are with the university college and the LTC. So Ms.

Palesny’s best to respond, you’re correct. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Palesny.

Through the chair, the mayor is quite right that is certainly the basis of discussion. Each time the contracts are renewed, what we endeavor to ensure is that the amount of ridership that’s generated by the tuition pass program is in balance with the amount of revenue that the program generates. So that’s something that’s revisited each time the contracts are renewed to ensure that we continue to have that balance and essentially make sure that that particular demographic is paying their fair share when we look at it system-wide. go back to Mayor Morgan.

Yes, and I think that’s that’s an exceptionally fair way to do it is to look at the usage and the cost and that sort of thing. So that will I guess ultimately balance itself out through the discussions in the future at the end of the current iteration of the contract. And I recognize through the chair that this is not part of our staff report back but given the context and some pieces of this are about the way that the system is subsidized and passes and ridership. I appreciate that the question was answered today rather than in a different forum.

So with that, I don’t have a lot of other questions. I certainly support getting options back to look at these pieces and I think decisions can be made in the future once we have that information. Thank you. I have Councillor Tross.

I’ll go ahead . I just have two questions and I’ll wrap up. The first one deals with, it follows up on the mayor’s questions about the student passes. Can we break down between Fanshawe and Western, the loss of ridership?

We’re hearing that the international student cut back has been responsible for a loss of ridership. Could we break that down between the revenue that we’re getting from Western and the revenue that we’re getting from Fanshawe? I’ll go to Ms. Chesney.

Sorry, through the chair, yes, we can break down where the declines have occurred with both of the programs. I think it would be important to get that either here to our staff and actually to the commission as soon as possible and I will be asking for that again at the next commission meeting. My final question deals with the relationship between conventional transit and the special transit and I have to mention this because I’m very much involved in working with the disability community on their special transit concerns as a member of the advisory committee that LTC has. What are the implications of these potential changes in programs on the services that we’re able to provide to people with disabilities?

Thank you. I’ll go to the Smith first. Go ahead. Thank you and through the chair.

As we go through option 2 and 3 and look at modifications, potentially an option 2 to enhance access, and then we look at a universal income-based. as part of the conversation, we were collabor atively with the LTC on this report with our consultant and we will do that too as we roll out what these options look like and thank you, that is one of the parameters we’ll take into account as we prepare these options. >> Thank you, Councillor, you had a good minute left. >> Oh, sorry.

Go ahead, Councillor. >> Thank you and I think they’re members of the community that are very, very sensitive to that because people avoid very hard for improvements in the specialized transit. We’re finally starting to see the possibility of those coming into fruition. People are very happy and excited about some of the changes that are going on, and I just want to make sure that this important part of our service doesn’t fall through the cracks.

In closing, I think it would be important to also thank the staff members who worked on this. They say at the end of the report there’s a broader shift towards viewing transit as essential social infrastructure and I think that is such a profound and important statement I think that’s a good place to stop. Thank you looking for other speakers on this item. Okay seeing none we will open the vote on this 4.4.

Closing the vote motion carries 12 to 0. Thank you this takes us to item 4.5 which is letter from Councillor Frank. I will let you put your letter on the floor Councillor and then look for a seconder. Councill or McCallister is your seconder didn’t know if you if you wanted to introduce it, but I will go to you as the first speaker, go ahead.

Thank you, yes, I won’t speak too long because I feel like I got all of my points out in my letter, but the main point being that care point will shortly be closing in our community. And as you can see, as outlined in the letter, they have done a lot of good work for the community and provided a service that when it closes, there will be really nowhere for people to go. And so this letter outlines the financial impacts of that closure and how it will ultimately increase a lot of municipal costs, including paramedic services, bylaw enforcement, waste management, parks and public spaces. So again, I won’t speak too many to those.

The main thing being that I would love to see us continue to retain the provincial financial investment in our community and if the intention is for the province to encourage treatment and detox and treatment beds then I would love to see that properly funded so that when people are ready to make that step on their recovery journey, they have spaces available to serve them. And so this motion is simply requesting the mayor and Councillor Hopkins to do some of that advocacy. And as you can see from Councillor Hopkins, there’s a lot of good work being done at AMO, but would love to see the continue push be that we need to provide these services to our community, not only for the folks who need the services, but also for the broader impacts that happen in the community when we do not have proper healthcare services available for people who are trying to recover from drug addiction. So that is the motion, that’s my rationale, and I hope for a support on that.

Thank you, and just to clarify what’s the wording that you’ve got up on screen, ‘cause it’s different from what’s in your letter. So I just wanna make sure that that’s the wording that you’re looking to put forward. Thanks, I do actually think it’s exact same wording as the bottom motion in my letter. I do, I think it is, so I’m good with it.

Thank you. Okay, looking for other speakers, I’ll go to councilor Callister. And seconder in motion, go ahead. Thank you, and through the chair, appreciate Councilor Frank’s letter.

Regardless of which model we go with, I think the message that we hear consistently is capacity issues. I had previously come to council and asked in terms of expanding local shelter capacity. I know we have ongoing discussions in terms of the need for the highly supportive housing to increase capacity as well. So I think generally there, you know, what we’ve heard in the community, the conversations we’ve had at council, there are serious capacity issues and we have to continue that advocacy work in terms of getting those resources to really make headway on this.

So appreciate Councilor Frank bringing this forward. I know the mayor and Councilor Hopkins brought this up a number of different forums and likewise for other counselors and we’ve had the opportunity. I think we’ve all brought this up. And I think reiterating this is an important message that we have to keep Senator Queens Park as much as we can, so thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Morgan, next. I have one clarification and I have a few comments. In the motions as that, Mayor, me and Councillor Hopkins, we requested to advocate to the province on Ontario through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. So just so we’re clear, Councillor Hopkins would do the Association of Municipalities of Ontario piece.

I, if you’re asking me to advocate, I do it directly through Ontario Public City Mayor’s and that, so we don’t need to add that in. I just wanted to be transparent that if I’m directed to advocate, I’ll use the most useful and appropriate forms that I have. Thank you, I see a nod. Okay, my comments are, so I’m very supportive of this.

I appreciate Councillor Frank and I having a discussion about it before she brought it forward. I always appreciate the heads up when I’m gonna get asked to advocate for something. And I would say this particular motion is not of alignment with previous council motions and directions, as well as positions of OBCM and as Councillor Hopkins has outlined so many more positions. First, Councillor McAllister is right.

There’s been a request and a motion passed through this council about shelter space in our city. I brought forward a motion that council supported about increased detox rehab, rehabilitation spaces and beds in our community after the premier made some comments about wanting to expand that province wide. And the highly supportive housing piece, we know we’re already advocating for and creating spaces in our city. This also aligns with the Ontario Big City Mayor ‘s talked about the need for increased treatment and capacity beds across the province with decades ago the closure of a number of mental health beds.

And the reliance on the private sector for treatment and recovery beds, we know is there is an under supply of these across the province and it’s a general advocacy position of all 29 large municipalities that we would like to see more of that. One of the interesting things that came up through our discussion is it need not always be the government creating a bunch of new beds with new institutions. Yes, there are hospitals doing their master plans . Yes, there might be beds created through that process, but it was pointed out by, I believe it was the mayor Ajax, if I’m correct, that there are private treatment and recovery beds in some communities that are not being fully utilized and that the province could endeavor to fund or subsidize the cost of those beds to let people access them quicker and at perhaps a cost or a rate that would be more approximate integration with the local health care system rather than private sector rates of treatment and recovery.

So all that to say, these are things we’ve talked about. I’m very happy to advocate in a new way. I would say that I think the timing of the motion is appropriate. We know the government with previous closure of these sites in other cities has endeavored to keep the resources in those communities and invest them in different ways.

So I think there’s a good case to be made to the minister to say if the government is making a change of direction here with the way that they’re gonna resource this particular facility, keeping those dollars in the community for things that the government might support, I think is a good case for us to make individually as a city. So I think I would make this case both as a city of London issues specifically, but also continue to echo the advocacy of the larger municipal group about the general need for more treatment and recovery spaces and options as was described across the province. Thank you. I’m looking for other speakers on this item.

Councillor Trosto. I see that we have a very detailed letter from Councillor Hopkins, who I believe is not here. Is she online? Okay.

She’s not here today. I’m going to do my best to represent what was in her letter. AIMO has consistently engaged in exactly this type of advocacy work. And this letter is sort of a very, very good, although abbreviated sort of analysis of what they’ve done.

So what makes me a little uncomfortable about the way this motion is drafted isn’t so much that I’m opposed to it. “Yeah, of course we should continue, we should advocate.” And I think the points that were raised in Councillor Frank’s preamble were all right. And I agree with a little bit. A little uncertain, and I need to say this honestly, could we be doing more?

And if I could get a little bit of clarity from the City Clerk about what is the jurisdiction of the different committees of Council, my understanding is if we’re gonna talk about advocacy work, it should come to here, the SPPC, which is what this is doing. But if it goes to more particular assistance and support, it would come through CAHPS. Is that correct if I may ask the clerk? Mr.

Shelters. Thank you through the chair. Not necessarily to the councilor’s question. Depends on the nature of the advocacy.

We’ve had advocacy requests come to various committees through SPPC and ultimately it’s a council that decides that makes the request of the mayor or whoever the representative is on the advocacy group, such as AMO or FCM. Let me follow that up then. Thank you by asking, would it be in order for a subsequent meeting of CAHPS to take this up with respect to further support for keeping the facility open, which I do not want to debate right now. I know that would be a robust debate, but that question would be within the jurisdiction of caps as caps deals with funding arcade and 519 pursuit.

If we wanted to talk about actually funding the agency to help keep them open past June, that would be something that would be within the scope of what caps could discuss. Is that correct? Councillor, that’s kind of outside of the scope of the letter. So you’re just asking— Yes, but it’s very— I’m sorry, go ahead.

So you’re just asking the clerk for his opinion, which could be done online and doesn’t need to be done on your time on this meeting right now? I think it does and the reason for that is if the fact that this does not talk about taking further action I just want to be assured and I want to make sure but it also doesn’t say that take no further action So it’s open for you to interpret and have that conversation off Thank you And I’d appreciate hearing from the clerk’s mouth that since this doesn’t say take no further action I shouldn’t worry about this and I appreciate the chair saying that I’d love to hear it from the clerk Thank you, but the motions in front of you as well Well, I think it’s a simple enough request and I just don’t see why you won’t let me make that request Thank you point of order. Go ahead. You don’t have to snap your fingers.

I would like Okay, on the point of order, go ahead. Thank you. I would like the member to stop interrupting the chair. And I don’t know if I need to clarify that any further, but I feel like it’s rude.

I heard your point of order. I don’t think it was intended to be interrupting, but I’ll hear the counselor, go ahead. Okay, so based on what the chair has represented, that has not been contributing by the clerk. And since there is no take no further action, I’m going to take that as this can come up at a later time, should the need arise.

I do want to say, however, that AMO has been exemplary, and the mayor can speak for the mayors in terms of what they’ve done. But Councillor Hopkins here is making it very clear that AMO has already been engaging in this activity. May I ask if it would be considered to be a friendly amendment if we add the words continue to? So what would say Councillor A.

Hopkins be requested to continue to advocate, et cetera, through AMO, continue to, which indicates that they’re already doing it, which I think doesn’t detract from the intention of the motion, but it actually supplements it a little bit by recognizing that AMO has already been doing this. Thank you, Councillor. I read the motion as for increased and sustained to mean to continue. Okay, is that the intention of the maker?

Thank you, and just a reminder, there aren’t friendly amendments, So I would like, I can go to the mover just to clarify if that was her understanding. I’m happy to have that word added if it pleases the counselor. And yeah, in no way was this motion intended to indicate that AMO was not already doing some of this work. Yes, I would, Rick.

Counselor, I want to go ahead. Go ahead. Okay, yes, I would like the words to continue. I think it’s respectful to AMO and it recognizes the extraordinary contributions that they’ve been making to this file all along.

And I don’t know, does that need a motion or can that just be inserted? Thank you, the clerk indicated it needs a motion. So you’d like to add the words to continue. And I’ll look for a seconder, Councillor Frank, just a moment while we put that into the motion.

Thank you, so the amendment would read that Mayor J. Morgan and Councillor A. Hopkins be requested to continue to advocate. Thank you, and seeing agreement from the Councill or who moved the item, any discussion on the amendment?

Seeing no discussion on the amendment, I will look to open the amendment. So votes yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Thank you, so we’re on the as amended motion and same mover and seconder on the as amended.

Okay, seeing nods of agreement. Okay, thank you. And on the as amended motion, Councilor LaFlore was still yours. Do you have any further remarks?

Councilor Trossa? No, nothing further. Thank you. And looking for other speakers on site, I’m Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you, so this one’s a little awkward for me because the first half of the letter I don’t necessarily agree with, I see the closure as a positive move and the province moving that money to treatment. I also question some of the data, not in what’s been presented but in how it’s been presented because when CarePoint says they reverse 218 overdoses and I’ve done some inquiries for other reasons And there’s on average 20 overdoses a day in London. So that’s 7,300 overdoses a day with CarePoint saying that they’ve had 218. So we’re talking about 3% of the overdoses based on my math.

And then they say they have 15,000 visits assuming there’s one injection per visit. And I don’t know exactly how it works, but I’m assuming that’s it. Well, we’re giving out a million needles a year in this city. And only, I was actually very surprised that the numbers were this low in terms of the impact.

So the first part of this, and I just, I’m tempted to not receive some of this, the commentary, but then I do support the, on the second page. I do think there’s a structural mismatch. I do think that there’s not sufficient treatment capacity. I do think we’re failing people at the moment they’re most ready to recover.

I’m very concerned about this. So I find that we as a council do a lot of advocacy to the province and we fail to look at what we can do as a council to do what we can municipally, we have a huge amount of power. I mean, we’re asking the province to do more treatment while we still support a model of care that’s harm reduction model, the model that the province rejected two years ago. We are still on that on that path.

We’re saying we’re advocating for increased shelter spaces to expand local shelter, which I support and have wanted. But my understanding was the whole of community was moving away from shelters. We heard in 2023 to expect a decrease in shelter beds and a move in a different direction. So I feel like we’re not clear here ourselves as to what we’re doing.

We have detox beds here, but people then, where do they go? Right? we don’t have a sober shelter. We don’t have sober social housing.

So people are back out on the street again. I think it’s tragic. I think we need pretreatment beds and post- treatment beds. These are all things that we could do.

And I think we should do. And maybe as Councillor Trosto said, it’s something to bring up at another committee. There hasn’t been the desire, as far as I know, if any of my fellow colleagues would be interested in moving forward, Councillor Pribble and I tried to bring forward recovery beds as early as early 2023 and we were, you know, three times that was completely tossed aside. So I think we need to look at our whole community system response.

I think we need to look at what our council has, we’re going to the province asking for treatment and we haven’t made that commitment. We’re not doing what we can do here. And I think it’s a real missed opportunity. I think it’s tragic that people don’t have a path to recovery without gaps in it and that we aren’t doing absolutely everything that we can to support people in their hour of need and then helping them through what is a long journey.

And I think London could do far better and as I’m going to say again, any of my colleagues interested in this, I would absolutely be willing to work on it and bring it forward. So far, I haven’t seen that. I’m going to support the advocacy of the province , but I’m not sure why they listened to us when we seemingly, you know, disapprove of all of their decisions and we want to do it the old way. Thank you.

I will go to Mayor Morgan. Yes, I think advocacy, the province is important because they have listened to us. When we created two hub space systems, the province used that and there was consultations between the city and the ministry of health, building the model for the heart hub that is now spread across the province. We are not out of alignment with the province’s approach.

We in fact have inspired to a certain degree the province’s approach to the hub space model linked with supportive housing in the way that we showed when we created a youth based hub and indigenous based hub. So I think the province does listen to us. The province has listened to us and they created a half a billion dollar system across the entire province which many are benefiting from. The province has been very responsive to municipalities and engaging with them on a number of pieces.

And so I also at the start should have commended the province for their engagement and their response to what was a serious and clear request from municipalities to say we need a provincial wide strategy and we need you to look at the models that are working in our communities and we need you to replicate those and share those across the board. Now the Minister of Health is going to do an analysis of the hard hub system. We and again the the hard hub here will fully participate in that and then there’ll be future adjustments to the system based on what’s working. The hard hubs do have some unique pieces to them across the province so that they can test different things.

Anyways my point is I think I think the advocacy is well worth it. I think the province listens and they have listened in the past and we have been aligned with them on many issues. Thank you, I have Councillor Ferreira next. Thank you through you.

I’m just coming off of the mayor there. Advocacy of the province is very important because first of all, we don’t even have the financial resources to really build this capacity. The financial tools that we have are not gonna be capable of funding, sustaining, building, operating, the need that we need here. And I’d also say that this is something that’s beyond the city.

It’s something that the entire region, the entire province, the entire country really needs to have integrated all as one kind of system of care. And it needs to be coordinated with itself as well. So the advocacy to the province and even to other levels of government is very required here on that. I would say a path to recovery with no gaps and pre-treatment beds can be a mix.

it’s not either or harm reduction or either or treatment and recovery. Like, we need to understand that, you know, there are medical professionals in the field who have lots of experience here. And I do hear the discussion that, you know, there’s a mix here. I’m not gonna be one to say that I’m an expert on exactly what that looks like, but there is a mix.

It’s not either or either or a full path to recovery with no gaps and pre-treatment beds would mean Some of the things that Councillor Frank and Councillor McAllister is bringing forward to the table here, it could mean more than that. It should mean more than that. But there are many gaps and I will agree with that. There’s gaps across the entire system, but we need to fill those gaps and we can’t do that alone as a city.

We need the province to help us out. We need the province to build that system. So that would just be kind of my response there. It’s not an either or thing.

It’s probably both and more. Thank you, looking for other speakers. Okay, I have Councillor Stevenson. Let me just take a look at how much time you have 58 seconds remaining.

Thank you, I just like to move an amendment that it says expand local sober shelter and housing. So I’d like to insert the word sober in there as we do not have an area for people to go to escape drugs or to be in a place of recovery. Thank you, just a moment, Councillor. Councillor, you’re asking to move an amendment, but this is your second time speaking.

So we move amendments on our first time speaking. Okay, I can bring it to council. Thank you. And if you have a chance to just work with the clerk just to find out, ‘cause I’m not ruling on whether or not it’s in order or not on the motion.

So just conversation to have offline. Okay, looking to others for speakers on this item . Okay, seeing no other speakers, we have the motion as amended and I will open the vote. voting the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Okay, thank you, colleagues. We are now on to our next item, 4.6. We have a delegation request with this item. What I’d like to do is I’d like to deal with the delegation first, and then if that’s okay I’ll have the counselor move his motion following the delegation.

So looking for a mover and a seconder to hear the delegation on this item. I have Councilor Cuddy, I have Councilor Ferrera. Okay, we will open that vote. closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Hey, thank you. And joining us from the gallery and thank you for your patience. We have Mr. Peter Bergmanis, did I say that correctly?

Who’s the co-chair of London Health Coalition? Mr. Bergmanis, you have five minutes and I will give you a warning at 30 seconds. You may go ahead.

Thank you very much. When I looked silly up here if you had voted no. So thank you for the time and the consideration. I’m Peter Bergmanis from the London Health Coalition.

I’ve been the co-chair of that organization at the forefront of healthcare, public advocacy for quarter of a century. We’re one of the most formidable of all the organizations that do this work. There’s 400 member groups across the province comprising a national or a provincial network of over 700,000 Ontarians. So the health coalition is inclusive and politically nonpartisan.

A big tent organization encompassing seniors groups, patient advocacy, unions, nurses, physicians, allied healthcare, nonprofit community agencies, ethnic and cultural support groups, student and poverty reduction, equality seeking Canadians. We’re all galvanized by the single support of the universal public health care system. So we’re going collaboratively to protect and improve our public health care. We strive to honor and strengthen the principles of the Canada Health Act, universality, comprehensiveness, portability, accessibility, and public administration.

Our shared commitment to the core values of equality, democracy, social inclusion, and social justice inform our activism. Fueling our engagement in public policy and on matters related to our public health care system and healthy communities. Hence, the London Health Coalition’s interest in counselor Ferreras, modest and well-reasoned request for municipal action on the for-profit addiction treatment issue. The province is well endowed with the power to enforce universal public health care and is legally obliged to do so.

Counselor Ferreras recognize the corrupting influence, a profit in the delivery of addiction services and is righteous to pursue public options. Indeed, public solutions do exist and have existed. Not so long ago, as the mayor has referenced, the province-funded London Psychiatric Hospital provided psychiatric care and was commonly used for individuals dealing with both severe mental health issues and substance addiction. The open sea political decision to permanently shutter LPH in St.

Thomas psychiatric hospital costs the region up to 80% of its inpatient psychiatric and addictions bed capacity. The consequences of which the city is forced to live with to this day. The province has downloaded responsibility for our most vulnerable with scant regard for adequate community resources to care for them . Privileging for profit health provision a statement of values.

A government willing to stash 4 billion tax dollars into privately run investment funds and haphazardly buy and sell multi-million dollar private jets while starving our public facilities and hospitals needs to be nudged into reconsideration of its values and policy choices. The mayor believes, as I’ve heard here, that the province can change its mind . This is the moment for the City of London to step up for the public good. Join the London Health Coalition and endorsing Councillor Ferreira’s motion to do just that.

Thank you for your time. Thank you and thank you for your patience today while we dealt with other matters. I will go to Councillor Ferreira to introduce his motion and I understand you have a seconder. Thank you Chair.

I’ll move this motion and I have a seconder in the Mayor and Mayor Morgan. So I can read it out if you’d like, just let me know. Thank you. You may go ahead.

It was in our agenda , so you could go ahead with your debate on this item. Oh, sorry. You had a different from your agenda. It’s pretty much the same.

There’s just one slight tweak right at the beginning. But I can read it out. Because it’s… Then we’ll have you reread it.

Go ahead. So it’s that the following actions be taken with respect to the communication from myself, Councillor D for error regarding systemic concerns with for-profit addiction treatment in Ontario A) that the mayor and civic administration be requested to write a letter to the Ontario Ministry of Health, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, and the Ontario College of Pharmacists, and B) the mayor be requested to formally advocate to the province of Ontario, including through appropriate municipal and intergovernmental channels for the following. I) that the province and relevant regulatory bodies Undertake an immediate review of a high-volume for-profit addiction treatment and dispensing models operating in Ontario, II, that the province strengthen oversight, establish clear standards for integrated care, including aftercare, clinical oversight, coordination with broader health and social supports, and access to medically supervised detoxification services, and reform current policy frameworks governing for scribing and dispensing practices. I, I, I, that the province transition away from private for-profit drug dispensing models towards a publicly funded and publicly operated model fully integrated within the healthcare system with a focus on long-term recovery, stability, and patient outcomes and IV that as a part of this transition, these high-volume for-profit drug dispensing models operating in London and across Ontario be phased out and replaced with a publicly funded fully integrated health care model that delivers comprehensive addiction treatment without gaps in care.

If being noted that SPPC received a communication from the listed communications. Thank you. So that is on the floor and I’ll go to you as the first speaker. Thank you for that.

Well, I’ll start with, you know, we want all, we all want the same thing. We all are looking and seeking the same thing. We want individuals who are struggling with substance use disorder or addiction to find a better path to recovery, to find a better way of life and to ultimately not need or ultimately use in the future. And that’s really the main thing that we’re looking for.

So it’s just a matter of how we get there is really where the debate or the discussion goes. Some of those areas are out of our hands. Some of those areas should be firmly within the medical professional field. And some of the areas are within our scope.

Right now, as a municipality, we can really talk about the downstream effects. We can talk about how it impacts the municipality and we can talk about what our observations are. But a lot of this, most of it, is out of our hands. And this is why there’s — this is an advocacy request to go to the province and the regulators to just present what the reality is on the ground and request a better model.

So I just wanted to say that because this should be a productive debate moving forward. From what I see, you know, and from what I understand, council is aware. This system is clearly not working, you know, like it’s not working for the residents who are around these for-profit pharmacies, it’s not working for the patrons, not for visitors around downtown where we have some of these pharmacies or in Olis Village, not working for businesses, and it’s definitely not working for the people who are seeking a path away from substance use. And from what I see, we have these conflicting interests.

We have the business for profit model, which is clearly ramping up its high throughput volume of dispensing. And it’s also, like any other business, is looking and seeking customer retention. And then we have another interest where we want stabilization. We want people to move away from the use of substances.

And those two conflicting interests, those interests are conflicting from each other, and that right there at the heart of it is really where my issue lies. And I also see that we have a system that does not require that, you know, the continuity of care that I keep on talking about. It’s that full pathway that we were just talking about with no gaps. And the regulatory framework seems to allow that.

There are many gaps throughout the entire system, and it’s leading to a lot of issues and downstream effects and impacts. And I would say that this is clearly leading to diversion, like if we were to expect someone who is suffering from addiction to take a prescription and follow the label on the bottle with no aftercare, with no wraparound supports, with nothing, I’m just, you know, from what we understand about addiction itself, I question how that system actually would believe that there would be a pathway for someone to recover or a pathway for someone to get away from substance use disorder. The current regulatory framework doesn’t need that. It doesn’t require that.

And I don’t see the issue or I do see the issue as it’s the framework itself that is the problem. The framework itself that is allowing this. And I think just with the for profit delivery system itself and with the framework and what the framework requires, those are two areas that I’m asking for counsel to go to or to support this motion. So the mayor and civic administration can go to the province and just point these facts out and to request to remove that and request to make something better.

So I would ask for your support. I would ask for a productive debate and a debate that’s looking forward. And I would just say to colleagues, remember, we all want the same thing. We are all in line of what we want the end goal to be.

It’s a matter of of how do we get to that end goal? And I think that discussion is really where this is at. So I would leave it there. Hopefully I have some time if I need to come back later, but I’ll leave my remarks there, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor, you have 53 seconds remaining. In case you need to come back, looking for other speakers on this item. Go to Mayor Morgan. Yeah, I’ll speak briefly to it.

So first off, I want to thank Councilor Ferrara, as well as other members of Council who have identified the concerns that they’ve seen on the streets of their wards or out there. And I think I want to comment on Councillor Ferra ‘s approach in the letter and I appreciate that he gave some consultation with me on it. I think that this is an appropriate pathway forward to try to address an issue. I think it’s thoughtful, respectful, and tries to tackle the issue head on with the organizations who are capable of providing the proper level of oversight to this industry.

I would say I’m not a medical expert myself. I rely on advice of others. Dr. Summers has been great to provide advice to this council.

And although some models will work for some individuals, I think Councilor Farrah is writing his comments to say, the self-supervision model that is out there as part of the current system is, some people are just not capable of managing outside of some medical supervision. And that is creating some significant consequences and challenges in parts of our city as well. We’ve seen from thought and police service and other police services, significant diversion of medicine that should be in the hands of individuals who need it and are taking it and are using it to break addictions, deal with withdrawal. And it’s getting into the hands of those who do not need it or use it for those purposes.

And that is a significant concern, not just in our community, but in many communities. And so, you know, I’m happy to support the request for advocacy on this. I will tell you this is advocacy that does require coordination between different bodies, agencies, as well as, you know, other municipalities and healthcare related institutions. But in every discussion I’ve had so far related to this, they all seem to be moving towards the same page to say, this is not working and it needs to change.

there are vulnerable individuals who need help in our community and they are not getting help through the current model. And so looking towards the way that we can get them help, can minimize impacts on the wider community, I think is an appropriate path forward. And I would endeavor on this just to be transparent, not just to advocate to the province and write the letter to the other ministries, but this is a conversation that has been had by the Ontario big city mayors and I would endeavor to engage with my colleagues there about actions they’re taking, and then look to align some of those actions across different municipalities as well, because this is an issue that is not just felt in London, but other communities. So, wanna commend Councillor Ferra for bringing it forward.

Happy to second this, and happy to support the discussions moving forward through all of the channels mentioned, as well as the additional ones that I would endeavor to take this to. Other speakers on this item? Councillor McAllister, go ahead. Thank you and through the chair.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Councillor Ferrer. It’s one of those instances where you can see from the correspondence that was received. I’ve had communication seen from some of my residents. I think this is something that really has reson ated with the community.

It’s very well thought out and clearly it’s an issue as the mayor has already indicated that has come up. I will say just anecdotally I hear this as well. I don’t have necessarily to the same degree other parts of the city are experiencing this. But I do think this is an issue that we absolutely need to take up.

And to Council first point, in terms of the continuity of care, that’s very important. I know it was referenced earlier in terms of the facilities we used to have. And a lot of facilities, especially with dispens ing drugs, do have quite robust access control in terms of narcotics and having to take them in the presence of a medical professional. I think we’ve let a few things slip over the years in terms of what we used to have versus what we have right now in this for-profit model.

As is indicated with this has some serious gaps that we really need to address. And I think that there’s a lot of folks who are better equipped in terms of their advocacy directly to the province. They’ve been identified in this letter and I think the mayor will do his best in terms of moving those forward as well. But this really is a gap and something we need to move on.

We know the diversion of drugs is an issue. We’ve heard that, and LPS has been quite adamant about this as well. And if this is a loophole that we can close, we absolutely should take every opportunity to do that. So again, really wanna thank the Councilor for bringing us forward.

He put a lot of our effort into that, and I just didn’t want that to go by because he really did put a lot of effort into this. So thank you for your work. Thank you, looking for other speakers on this item. Councilor Stevenson.

Thank you. I find this just so interesting to listen to you, because safer supplies started in London, Ontario by a doctor in Old East Village. It’s been a disaster there since 2018. That doctor was part of and led our whole of community system response.

This letter tries to address the issues being faced on Dundas place without coming out against safer supply. And it’s to a province that has said, I compare it to giving people poker chips and dropping them off in front of whatever. Like it’s to a premier who said, I’m again safe for supply. And we’re gonna go with, I don’t even know what this motion says.

Like, I want to address the issues, but I don’t even know what it says. Like we had a medical clinic, London inter-community health center, prescribing safer supply, and people would walk across the street to the pharmacy and get it to 275 people. day. I put the stats out three years ago.

It was like a million dollars that pharmacy was potentially making. So I don’t know what this is asking for. You know, why does it not say we’re asking them to stop safer supply? You want safer supply, but you want, I mean, was it a for profit model before when London inter-community health was doing it?

It wasn’t. But it was a disaster then. We had diversion. We had people all over the street.

The neighborhood told me from the time I got elected that it was the problem. It was the thing that they noticed. They said, “Go behind Chapman’s. You’ll see it every morning.

The pills bottles being sold, the people coming by, the people.” So if this counsel wants to align with the province and say, “We don’t want to say for supply anymore, I’m all for it,” if we want to have no gaps in care, of course, I’m for that. We don ‘t even know what we’re saying here, Like, unless you want to go back to the London Community Health model, which was federally funded wraparound care, which did not stop the devastation. So the only difference is, yes, it’s spreading out. Now we have five locations on Dundas Street.

It’s tragic, but all of a sudden going back to the model that the federal government did, it destroyed, according to many of the people who lived there, that area. And so I don’t know what it is you’re asking for. And that doctor who started safe for supply got four years of that wraparound and care. Like I said, so they had visits and stuff like that there.

It still had the, it looked exactly like Dundas Place looks. And it did for years and it has continued to look that way. And the other thing that we, that is so sort of ironic, and I’m gonna talk about this Mark Council is this is, this is the model of care that we’re using with arcade. That’s again, causing the disaster.

A high volume output of, but in this case, sandwiches and tents and that kind of thing. Without the structural care, without the wash rooms and the beds, Cronin Warner can do it 24/7. People have everything that they need. But to just be doing the same, you’re criticizing something that we are doing as a city, that the devastation that is being witnessed has been criticized.

I haven’t been allowed to speak about it because it’s stigmatizing. Like we are so twisting around ourselves here. We, as a council, have endorsed a model of harm reduction that says the criminalization of drugs is a harm. We are years behind where the province is, where they’re going.

We advocate against all the things that they want , and yet we’re going to go with this. I mean, I’m not going to vote against it. Well, actually, I am. Well, now all the wording has changed.

I would say, and I would ask the mayor to be clear on this, is he supporting the premier there’s stance against safer supply? Are we asking for safer supply program to be stopped? Or are we asking for the federal wrap-around supports that were there previously? Of which, when the four-year funding ran out, there was huge screams that were gonna be bodies everywhere, people were gonna die, got one extra year of funding, and when there was no more funding to be had, didn’t hear a peep, did not hear a peep about the lives.

Thank you, Councillor, that’s your time. Councillor Ferrera, you asked to be back on the speaker’s list. I’m just checking to see if there’s anybody else, but you can go ahead. And just to remind you, hold on, your time.

You have 53 seconds, go ahead. Thank you. I want to have a productive discussion. And, you know, equating the distribution of foods and the distribution of pills are two very different things, very different things.

We are talking about specifically the conflicting interests. We are talking about an actual continuum of care. It’s not one or the other like we just decided on the last one. This is different because I am looking for the full scope and I’m looking for the medical professional community to lead that.

I am asking for the mayor and civic administration to advocate to the province and point those factors out. We need to get less political here. We need to get more, just more to working together on this. We need to pull the politics away ‘cause like I have to say again and again, I feel the politics has got us into this mess.

And now the politics are gonna make it hard for us to get out of this mess. We need to just get together, shoulder to shoulder, tell the province this is what’s going on. Thank you, that’s your time. I have Councillor Trosto next.

So I’ll just, through the chair, I’ll just continue along those lines by saying that The comments been made that I don’t know what this motion does. I’ve read this motion, I’ve reread it, I’m looking at it again right now. It’s very clear what it’s doing. And this is actually stepping away from the kind of really polarizing the vice of politics that’s going to help us out of this problem that we’re in.

And I think that by recognizing not only lobbying to the Ministry of Health, but to also talk about the College of Physicians and the Ontario College of Pharmacists. It’s brilliant. It puts our efforts in a new place. It puts our efforts where it can be the most productive.

And it puts our efforts, we’re placing our faith in the science-based logic of medical and pharmaceutical professionals. And I think it ‘s really salutary that we’re doing that. I think that Councillor Ferreira has done a remarkable job observing what’s going on in his street and he was on CBC this morning and he talked about just looking right across the street and seeing commentators say yes, we see this all the time. He was being very specific about the kind of damage that he was talking about that’s being caused on this particular street at this particular time by a very particular model, which I think our delegation spoke to very, very, very eloquently.

So I mean, I want to go beyond just saying, please vote for this, but please understand this is the kind of progressive policy that is going to help bring us together towards trying to come up with a reasonable solution to this problem. And to just try to throw cold water on it by saying, I don’t know what this says. It’s just, it’s right there. So please folks, let’s support this and let’s be proud that the City of London is undertaking something like this.

Looking for other speakers on this item, Councill or Prabble. Thank you. I have a couple of comments. And I do think that these motions and for asking the mayor to lobby for us to talk about these issues, I think that is important.

So I think that is positive. I have my issues are, and again, you know, I see what it’s saying. On the other hand, it’s saying the staff and are we on the same path as we are actually saying. So we are going to the higher level of government , we are asking them to do something and are we actually living by it as well?

Point one, point two, there was a mentioning now, I guess, across the CBC, you know, locally, people do not understand that this organization that opened up on Danda’s place, they were at a city plaza. They knew everyone knew at city plaza. There was the main issue. They were very happy to get rid of them and really licensed them on Dundas Place.

So I don’t know where it is in terms of the council’s staff, but that we missed this and we allowed them to go to a place like this. So again, it’s great that we are saying, “Dear Mayor, please lobby on us,” but things that we can control, we are not to a certain degree at all. We have for some businesses this number of licenses that maximum number of licenses in the city. I mean, we know which one they are.

I don’t have to repeat it. But are we doing it with these private organizations? So those are the things that it’s great that we do ask these things. But let’s say, you know, like think globally, act locally.

So I really think that us to act locally and to really make sure how do we do this? This is not in our control. Yes, dear mayor, please work for us, help lobby them, help bring us the money, help bring us certain policies. I’m for it, but what are we doing locally?

And that’s my bigger issue. There was a very big drop ball into SOFAS, letting them license and open up on Dundas Place. Now we are struggling with it. Thanks to the OPP, we had a help with the neighboring organization, which again, we know what happened few months ago or twice in the last year.

So I do see some of the points that were said. As I said, I said it, I’m gonna repeat again, that I see where it’s going, but on the other hand, are you living by it? If someone was to come from the provincial level and say, Jerry, are you living by it? You want us to do it?

Are you living by it? I wouldn’t be able to say 100% yes we are. Thank you, looking for other speakers on the side. Okay, seeing no additional speakers, we will open the vote on this 4.6 and all the communication.

the vote motion carries 12 to 0. Okay colleagues it’s 425 I’m in your hands if anyone would like to take a break we have one more item remaining and that is from the deferred items list it’s item 2.1 the micro shelters if anyone would like us to go on to deferred matters I’m looking for a mover and seconder for okay I have a mover and seconder Councillor Frank Councillor Cuddy looking for discussion on item 2.1. Councilor Stevenson. Thank you.

I pulled it because I’m hoping that my colleagues will support an amendment asking or actually, I will ask ‘cause there may not be a requirement for one. So on page four, we’ve been given the capital amount to date 3,177,579 and the operational monthly estimated amount at 288,000. But again, these are property tax dollars that we have spent here. And I feel like the public deserves more transparency on these costs.

So what I would like is a breakdown of the capital costs and a breakdown of the operational monthly estimated costs. Is it possible to get that from administration before council? And is an amendment required to do that? Ms.

Ramley, go ahead. Thank you. And speaking to the capital costs, We do not generally provide detailed breakdowns of construction projects as a whole or on contracts. We could potentially provide and we have in the past some of the larger contract values, but as I noted, we don’t generally have that level of detail.

Ms. Romelou on the operating degree, go ahead. Thank you and through the chair. So the operating we could also provide a farther breakdown before council.

One aspect is Azure aware with the food services. we’ve partnered with our gate. We recently wrapped a program with them at the end of March, so we are currently renegotiating an ongoing contract with them, so once we have that finalized, we can provide that as well. Councillor Stevenson.

Okay, thank you. So on the capital, one of the bigger issues for me and what I hear from residents is, you know, we know that there’s a part of it that could potentially be moved to another site at another time. There’s parts of it that we’ve done to the site and will be just sunk costs kind of thing. And there might be other costs where we’ve actually upgraded some things that are gonna benefit the city in the long run.

It would be nice to be able to tell the public out of that 3 million. I just think there’s detail there that would be helpful. Thank you, Ms. Randall, go ahead.

Thank you, through the chair. Yes, I believe we previously reported on the cost of the sleep cabins and then ultimately the security trailer. So that is the piece from Fairway International. The total for that was about 1.3 million, and those assets could be moved to another site.

The remaining capital costs were for site works, site servicing and so on, the electrical servicing and so on. So those would be your sunk costs in the site. Councilor Stevenson. Thank you.

Were there some costs though, that I don’t know if things were done to the road or lighting added or something that’s actually a value add to the city going forward, or is it all just set up and that it will be done when it’s done? Thank you. Thank you through the chair. No, the improvements that were done for the site were very site specific, so they would not be carried forward to save for future development.

Okay, thanks. It sounds like that’s, sorry, through the chair. But the monthly estimated costs, I think it’s really important to know. Again, these are property tax dollars, And we’re looking at $4,800 a month per micro shelter.

And again, we’ve got so many people in our city who are struggling and struggling to survive on $1,500 a month. And it’s really difficult for them to understand why it’s $4,800 a month for something like this, where we own the property, own the building. So I’m assuming there’s no rent or anything. This is just strictly operating costs.

we’ve said it’s not a hub, it’s just a shelter. So the details matter, and these could potentially be ongoing costs as any other city, there’s four or five other cities that have done these. I’m not aware of any of them that see an end date to this. Some of them have renewed the contracts as long as to 2030 and beyond.

So the details I think are really important here. If they’re shared with council, is it possible to get a briefing note on the public agenda just to help us distribute the information? Just a moment. Thank you.

We’ll go to staff and ask whether or not you require direction for the briefing note, which would mean that it couldn’t be on the agenda because we’d need to approve it at council before it could go forward. So I would just look to staff if they would like direction on that matter. Thank you and through you, Chair. Like right now that we have the breakdown of the operational costs is about 75% of that operating cost is for the onsite operator , 15% for food services and 10% for the rentals and other ancillary services.

If we were to put together a briefing note for council, we would circulate it to council, noting here’s the dollar attached to that 75%, the dollar attached to the 15% of food and the dollar amount attached to the 10% of rentals. So anything beyond that, we would probably want council direction ‘cause it would take some staff time to start pulling contracts and things like that. Counselor, does that help? Yeah, thank you.

I’m happy with the easier version on that. Sorry, just to clarify. So just to counsel on the breakdown. Okay, thank you.

The other question I had is there was mention, I believe in here since fall of 2025, there’s been a notable reduction in both the number of encampments and the individuals residing within them. And it does make sense and that’s great to hear. But I’m wondering, again, as council goes to make decisions, we’re looking at, we’re doing $288,000 a month of property tax dollars. Next week at council, we’re gonna be looking at giving more money for encampment supports.

And I’m just wondering, is there any way to, I would have thought in this notable reduction in a number of encampments that maybe we would have been able to reduce some of our encampment support given that we’ve got this $288,000 a month going to these 60 people. So was there any looking at that in terms of these numbers, when you do this notable decrease, is there any guidance for Council in terms of that that should then reduce some of the services that are required at the encamp ment sites? Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Chair, and through you. It’s a very valid question, and it’s the one that the team has been considering. It’s why Council has our procurement framework coming before them so that we can actually evaluate what the impact of the micro shelters have been and if it’s sustained. So this is great.

This is a first glimpse. We are fresh out of the gates. Things are trending in the right direction. We’re seeing a noticeable decrease as people are decanted from parks.

But there are other spin-offs from that. The folks that remain in encampments are further dispersed. Take longer and more difficult to reach, and for at-reach services to traverse, perhaps more difficult landscape but we also have just come through a very harsh winter and we have benefited from people staying in the site and we need to see what the spring brings and what the summer brings . So we can make a knee jerk decision right now and and reduce tons of outreach services and we may have a reality where folks look to leave the micro shelter site which we hope is not the case and we would hedge an estimate that that won’t be the case but it’s always possible and and then we’ll need to respond to that reality where we may see an uptick in encampments or we see a traditional uptick in encampments every spring anyway and we would want to address those so those questions are not lost on this coordinated informed response team they’re not lost on the organizations that do some of that outreach council knows the federal funding ended for those outreach services so if they’re not replenished then those services will be reduced anyway.

Councillor Stevenson, you have about 45 seconds, go ahead. Okay, thanks. I have two other things. One is about future reporting because there’s no indication of when the next report will come.

And the others around the housing of possibilities for these people, because I talk to people all the time who still have four five years left on the wait list, and I know we ‘re not adding any more urgent. So I’m just wondering how these people can move into housing if they have to go on the wait list, I’m assuming it’s just highly supportive housing. 15 seconds, go to Mr. Dickens.

Through you, Chair, I’ll start this response and leave it to others to weigh in. If I miss anything, a number of these folks that have come out to this site were previously connected to housing support workers, and so that work was ongoing. This, it’s not like they showed up at the microm odular site and then they suddenly became key priorities for housing placements. They’ve been connected to housing supports for quite a while, but we’re really lacking the ability to stabilize and have some supports in place on a consistent basis to be able to move through their housing journey.

Also, the council is correct that some of these folks will move into high support of housing as the next step in their stabilization journey and their housing stability journey that just making a leap to independent living in a high-rise building with very close neighbors would not be the best fit. So anybody that is moving out or will potentially move out and we do have some that are optimistic for the beginning of May. They would be moving into housings that already have supports in place or supports would go with them beyond just traditional rank year to income. Councilor, you have about 15 seconds.

Yeah, future reporting. On the question of future reporting. Mr. Dickens, do you have any comments on future reporting?

Yeah, thank you Chair. I’m trying to pull up the language from the clerk’s office that they shared with us earlier today. We’re at state of the civic administration. We had Council resolution that civic administration report to Council upon the opening of this site and then to report back after one year of operation.

So now that Council has a lot of the information and we have shifted from project design and project development and this is the report that demonstrates Project Start, we would look to follow the Council resolution and report back at the one year mark. Councilor Stevenson. Yeah, I guess just my only comment, There’s the funding ends shortly after that, but I guess that’ll be a good time for the decision. Thanks.

Thank you, looking for other speakers on this item. Seeing none, we will open the vote on 2.1. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Thank you, that brings us to item seven, which is adjournment, and I see many hands ready to go up.

But before we go there, it is, she’s hiding. It is Ms. Share’s birthday today. Ms.

Smith offered to lead us in happy birthday. An F major, I believe you said, right? Okay. We will just say thank you and happy birthday to you.

And with that, we’ll take a motion to adjourn. Councillor McAllister and Councillor Van Mir berg and thank you and by hand, everyone. Motion carries. Enjoy your birthday.

Thanks, everyone.